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GHOSTS, 



Devils, Angels 



AND 



SUN GODS.^^ 






A SERIES OF ESSAYS AGAINST 



Superstition, 

By "P. RUSTICUS. 

[COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY THE AUTHOR.] 






Copiks of this Book may be had by addressing Box 36, 
Truxton, Cortland Co., N. Y. Price, post paid, %-5 < *-' 

OR PER DOZEN. 



The following works have been freely consulted and drawn 
from in the preparation of these essays : Spencer's Synthetic 
Philosophy, Tylor's Primitive Culture, Conway's Demon- 
ology and Devil Lore, Fiske's Myths and Myth-makers, 
Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Smith's Dictionary of Greek 
and Roman Biography and Mythology, Cox's Mythology of 
the Aryan Nations, Goldziher's Mythology among the 
Hebrew r s, Bible Folk-lore, Morris' Sigurd the Volsung, 
Barnes' General History, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyc- 
lopaedia of Abraham Rees, Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, 
White's Warfare of Science, Darwin's Origin of Man, Beal's 
Legend of Buddha, Arnold's Light of Asia, Jone's Credulities 
Past and Present, Goodwin's Pioneer History of Cortland 
Co., Keary's Dawn of History, Carpenter's Mental Physi- 
ology, Bjorstrom's Hypnotism, Schultze's Fetichism. 



♦ ♦ ©ec|ieation. ♦ ♦ 

/po my honored patter, Wfyose sympatic 
inferesf in tfyese studies fyas been a constant 
and delightful encouragement toWard tfyeif 
pursuit; \AHtl7 tfye l?ope, tfyat a glimmer of 
ligfyt may be tfyro\A)r\ ir\ some corners of t^ 
World, \A)l?icl? t^e sfyadoWs of superstition 
fyatfe previously darkened ; tl?is little book 
is affectionately dedicated. ♦ ♦♦♦♦♦ 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Page. 

I. Ghosts 3 

II. Devils „ io 

III. Angels 21 

IV. Samson, the Hebrew Sun-God 28 

V. Sigurd, the Teutonic Sun-God 36 

VI. Heracles, the Greek Sun-God • 46 

VII. Jonah and his Colleagues 57 

VIII. The Garden of Eden 63 

IX. Noah an d the Del uge ... 69 

X. Gautama Buddha, and Jesus Christ,— A Parallel 75 

XI. The Fated 13 83 

XII. The Mystic 3 87 

XIII. Tioughnioga 93 

XIV. The Evolution of the Family 97 

XV. The Divining Rod 104 

XVI. The Clairvoyant 108 

XVII. Our Colored Brother Hypnotic 115 

XVIII. The Separation of Church and School 117 



GHOSTS. 

Most people say they do not believe in ghosts. "Ghosts are imma- 
terial things, do not reflect light, and therefore can not be seen ; they 
have no vocal chords, do not produce sound-waves, therefore can not be 
heard ; they have no substance, do not resist pressure, therefore can not 
be felt." And so these logical individuals proceed to argue defenceless 
spirits out of existence. But you will not find them loitering carelessly 
about a graveyard after dark ; neither do they enjoy to any great extent, 
the privilege of sleeping near a corpse. A doctor's skeleton in the house 
will often disturb their slumbers slightly. They do not object to such 
ideas as "giving up the ghost," and, when they have "shuffled off this 
mortal coil," they expect to enter the "vale of shadows." Perchance 
they attend church of a Sunday and mumble off among other curious 
statements that they believe in the Holy Ghost. They retain the dual 
conception of man ; that he consists of two parts — the body tangible 
and real, and a spirit or soul, an indefinite fog-bank, which flits gently 
away at death, up somewhere into ethereal space. The name has been 
refined of late, changed from ghost to spirit, but the essential notion 
of primitive man still permeates our thought. And to the saving of 
this vaporous emanation of the savage brain from the fancied vengeance 
of an anthropomorphic god many persons devote the larger part ot 
their life. 

The plain, simple idea, that man consists of an organism and its 
functions, will not do. That the soul is a summation of activities, of 
moving, feeling, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing, sensing, perceiving, 
remembering, imagining, dreaming, thinking, hating, loving, reason- 
ing — that it really consists of immaterial things, is too clear an idea to 
be generally accepted. No, these soul elements must be wrapped in a 
blanket of mystery and given a form, so that people may worry about 
its being lost. 

How did man ever come to think of himself as a body with a ghost 
inside ? Such a question asked a hundred years ago would only have 



4 GHOSTS. 

led to a perplexing network of conjectures. But to-day, thanks to the 
men who have been patiently working in the realms of primitive cul- 
ture, we have an easy answer. 

It is now generally admitted by all thinkers worthy the name, that 
civilization has everywhere emerged by a slow growth from savagery. 
The proofs are accumulative and are becoming so overwhelming in 
quantity, that the wonder now is, how the world ever thought other- 
wise. Each science bearing upon the history of man continues to pour 
in its volumes of evidence. Geology uncovers a stone age, in every 
part of the earth where search has been made— tens of thousands of 
years, probably hundreds of thousands, when man knew not the use of 
iron. Philology proclaims a corresponding growth of words out of 
crude and simple roots. A study of the art ol writing shows that all 
our alphabets are remnants of the rude pictures of the savage. Our 
numerical system is based on the number ten, because our ancestors 
counted on their fingers. But why continue this enumeration ? The 
difficulty is not to find evidence, but to choose from the mass which 
crowds upon the attention. 

When it is wished to discover the origin of an interesting superstition 
like that of ghosts, which has haunted man in multitudinous forms 
throughout historic times, we ask, what did our pre-historic forefathers 
think about it ? And straightway we begin to study the notions of 
barbaric and savage peoples. The whole matter clears up ; we are 
cherishing the relics of man's childhood state, we feel mortified and 
look about for more sensible conceptions. 

Upon a moonlight night a young Indian brave steals out alone, bent 
upon the capture from a neighboring tribe of a maiden for his wife. 
Silently gliding along by his side he notices a dark form, flitting over 
logs and mosses, keeping close to him, sympathizing in his every act. 
With mind unversed in science he gives the simple explanation of a 
child — it is his other self. Kneeling at a spring of water he takes a 
good long draught in nature's way, and there, beneath the surface, 
kissing his lips and gazing into his eyes, is his second, drinking also. 



GHOSTS. J 

Think you he understands the theory of reflected images ? As well 
suppose him acquainted with Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychol- 
ogy"! Weary with forcing his way through clinging bushes and of 
clambering over sinking bogs, he lies down beneath a friendly oak and 
wrapping his blanket around him goes off to sleep. "Goes off," did I 
say ? Why, that is his own idea of slumber ! How the words tarry 
with us ! Yes, he believes that his shadow leaves the body and flies 
unimpeded over hills and valleys — back perhaps to his village home. 
It meets and talks with his comrades, his brother, his father. Then 
away to* the hunt ! And never before flew arrow truer into the heart 
of the stag. Next it confronts an old and hated enemy and hand to 
hand they writhe and strain till his knife slips gurgling betwixt the ribs 
of his foe. Now with his Indian maiden, his spirit drinks love from 
her dark eyes, while an unconscious smile plays coyly about the 
features of the deserted body. But soon the Sun God enters upon his 
daily hunt along the heavens, and back to its companion speeds the 
wandering ghost. When it re-enters his senseless form the Indian 
youth awakes. 

Think not for a moment that the picture is unreal ; such in fact are the 
actual thoughts of savage people, reported by many careful observers. 
The word for soul in barbaric languages often means also shadow, and 
we combine these significations when we call upon the "shades" of 
Shakespeare. 

Sickness to a savage is the temporary departure of his second, and 
he trembles lest its place be taken by an evil spirit ; hence our expres- 
sion, "taken sick." If he becomes very weak and faints, his ghost has 
gone away, and when it comes back and re-enters the body, "he is 
himself again." In violent attacks and fits of all sorts his other self 
has been displaced by a devil and he is thoroughly "possessed." 
Death is the final departure of the ghost from the body ; it is then free 
to wander whither it wills. But the savage believes that it hovers near 
the corpse, loth to leave its companion, to which it has been so long 
and dearly attached. Remnants of such notions make us shudder as 



6 GHOSTS. 

we gaze through the bars of a triDrgue or look upon the features of a 
"departed" friend. 

Another coincidence catches the attention of primitive man ; the 
soul and breath depart together. They must be one he says ; and 
hence their names come down to us, freighted with the double meaning : 
geist'm German and its cognate, ghost, in English both mean "breath," 
and our word, spirit, is the Latin spiritus from "spirare," to breathe. 
The Seminole's new-born babe is held over the face of its dying 
mother to catch this parting breeze. The Tyrolese still fancy they can 
see the good man's ghost issue from his mouth, as he dies, like a little 
white cloud, and the Greek warrior believed that it came floating out 
in the blood that issued from a mortal wound and escaped to pass at 
once to the realms below. 

To show the vividness and intensity of these ghost conceptions we 
will condense a few statements from Mr. Tylor's most interesting work 
on Primitive Culture. The Algonquin Indians could hear the shadow- 
souls of the dead chirp like crickets. New Zealand spirits, coming to 
converse with the living, utter their words in whistling tones. The 
Iroquois used to leave an opening in the grave, and still bore holes in 
the coffin, to let the spirit out. The Chinese made a hole in the roof 
for the same purpose. In France, Germany and England, peasants 
still open a window or door for the departing soul's convenience, The 
Queensland aborigines would beat the air in an annual mock fight to 
scare away the ghosts of the dead of that year. North American In- 
dians have been known to set nets about their cabins to catch and 
keep out the spirits of their neighbors ; and a widow leaves her hus- 
band's funeral, followed by a friend, who flourishes a handful of twigs 
about her head to free her from his ghost, that she may marry again 
unfettered. Negro widows duck themselves in the river to accomplish 
the same end. With a kindlier feeling the Congos abstain for a whole 
year after a death from sweeping the house, lest the dust should injure 
t he delicate substance of the spirit. The German peasant mother 
warns her careless little daughter not to slam the door for fear of pinch- 



GHOSTS. 7 

ing a soul in it. There is a pathetic German superstition that the dead 
mother's coming back to suckle her child may be known by the hollow 
pressed down in the bed where she lay. The belief that ghosts have 
weight is further shown by an alleged spiritualistic reckoning at from 
three to four ounces. 

The "second" is thought to be like the material part in form and 
wants ; hence to disable it, the corpse of a fallen enemy is often muti- 
lated, a thumb is cut off so that it cannot throw a spear. The ghost of 
the warrior will need its bow and arrows and other weapons, so they are 
carefully placed near the body at death. Especially is it thought of 
vital importance to furnish a generous supply of food, for ghosts are 
always good eaters. But when the vituals are left untouched, the 
friends conclude that only nourishing shadows have been needed, and 
so fall to with zeal and devour the substantial part themselves. When 
priestcraft develops, this part of the program goes to them, and here 
we have the beginning of that long series of pious frauds practiced on 
the credulity ot the world in all climes and times — the bringing in of 
offerings for the propitiation of sins, which offerings fall neatly into 
the laps of the wily, ecclesiastical prestidigitators. 

With characteristic consistency the child of the forest awards a ghost 
to every inanimate object ; for they all have shadows, and they appear 
to him in his dreams. This is an important step in that personification 
of nature, which leads to his complicated worship called fetticism, out 
of which have developed our modern religions. Before he cuts down 
a tree, he invokes forgiveness of its spirit and pleads the dire necessity 
which urges him to the deed. Around an expiring deer the hunters 
gather and beg pardon of the ghost for depriving it of a body, pleading 
the need of something to eat. No tribe will kill the animal from which 
it is supposed to spring — its totem — for thus an ancestral spirit will be 
left bodiless. The belief in*transmigration of the soul does not seem 
so strange, now that its origin is disclosed ; if animals are thought to 
contain the shadows of forefathers, how easily may follow the idea that 
these souls are destined to pass from one animal to another through a 



8 GHOSTS. 

long series. No distinction could be held between objects upon the 
earth and in the air and heavens above it. Hence the winds as they 
moan and whistle, the clouds as they gather and roll, the lightning as 
it darts and shatters, the moon as it waxes and wanes, and the sun as it 
warms and illumines — all are human. Their spirits are feared and 
worshiped according as they appear to be powerful for good or evil. 
And thus amidst a confusion of nature ghosts and ancestor ghosts, 
ghosts of friends and ghosts of enemies, ghosts of earth and ghosts of 
the heavens, the poor child of the woods is completely entangled in a 
plexus of dreaded, mysterious, animated, intangible beings. 

Thus has arisen our belief in ghosts ; they are tattered remnants of 
primitive ideas. A hard task it is to expel a disease that runs in the 
blood. But there are other reasons why this superstition is persistent. 
Mischievous boys often dress up in sheets and "like to die laughing" 
over the discomfiture of nervous people. But independent of such 
jokes, people do actually see ghosts. 

For the explanation of this statement a little close thought will be 
necessary. The optic apparatus may be considered as a little camera, 
the eye-ball, throwing an image upon a delicate, concave, sensitive 
screen, the retina. Millions of fibres lead from all points of this sur- 
face back through the optic nerve to the portion of the brain especially 
concerned with sight, the optic lobes. When light forms a picture 
upon the retina, it does so by acting as an irritant at all the points 
upon which it falls, and the fibre corresponding to each point carries 
back its message to the lobes as a wave of isomeric change. Object- 
ively, interpreted by some one else, the effect is a bundle of nervelets 
transmitting delicate vibrations to a co-ordinating center ; subjectively, 
interpreted by the person himself, it is form and color. These are two 
faces of the same phenomenon. Now as the causes of such irritations 
are usually outside the body, we learn to attribute the sensation to an 
external object. But the optic lobes are closely connected with the 
other co-ordinating centers of the brain and may be excited from 
within. Incapable of any other feeling than that of sight, all such ex- 



GHOSTS. 9 

'citations produce vision. During sleep these are experienced by every- 
body and are noticeable because the more vivid pictures coming; 
through the eye-ball are cut off. Dreams are reproductions of past 
-experiences and the wierd effects are caused by the curious ways in 
which they combine. Sleep is our mental kaleidoscope, where pri- 
mary feelings make an infinite variety of scenes by coming into new 
juxtapositions. Some of these elements are hereditary and not per- 
sonal, which adds much to the complexity of the pictures. Hand to 
hand struggles with bears and snakes, frequent dreams of many per- 
sons, cannot be attributed to their experience, but must be traced back 
to ancestral times ; they are reverberations of actual contests, that took 
place long ago, and have left their traces in the brain mechanism. 

When dream scenes are very vivid, they are easily confused with 
wakeful ones, and especially liable is this to occur just at the time of 
opening the eyes. Figures of persons will remain on the mind for 
some moments, clearly defined, and then fade away into a washstand 
or chair or overcoat. Prepossessed with a belief in spirits it is per- 
fectly natural to interpret these phantoms as ghosts. When the brain 
is unduly flushed with blood, as in delirium tremens, or the ecstacy of 
tfte fasting fanatic, such visions are seen during wakefulness. Some * 
persons from their very make-up are peculiarly susceptible to these 
hallucinations. But keep it ever clearly in mind that the cause is inter- 
nal. Two persons do not see the ghost at the same time ; to the nor- 
mal brain it is invisible ; plainly then the trouble is within the skull of 
the one who does see it. It may be well here to remember all the 
curious things which the hypnotized person sees and how the audience 
roars with laughter as they behold him deluded by his subjective pic- 
tures. Not so remarkable is the clothing by the imagination of an 
indefinite form with definite shape and features. Passing through a 
cemetery at night the white tombstones look like human beings, and 
the impression is not lessened by the chipmucks who rustle about 
upon the leaves. At a spiritualistic seance a woman covered over with 
gauze will be interpreted as six or seven departed dear ones of both 



TO DEVILS. 

sexes by as many different viewers in the same evening. But the little 
flash-light camera dispels the illusion and throws the dame into hyster- 
ics ; at Buffalo a good photograph of the Mentor, Ohio, medium was 
lately secured by an "amateur" who had smuggled in his instrument 
unawares. 

Gradually science is dispelling these horrid relics of bygone dark- 
ness. So many have been cleared away that we are often led to con- 
clude that now the mental air is pure about us, and we may look 
straight into crystal facts. .Far from it ! Murky with superstition are 
our daily thoughts. Those who assume to enlighten their fellows and 
are most dogmatic in voicing their notions of man and life too often 
bring forth more fanaticism than truth. With the hand of orthodoxy 
they seek to throttle investigation. They forget that truth and error 
poured into the test-tube of reason and shaken by discussion form a 
black precipitate ; they seem to be in doubt as to which must go to the 
bottom. 



DEVILS. 

Of all the cruel customs which have come down to civilization from 
savagery, perhaps the most heartless is that of filling the minds of chil- 
dren with notions of devils, Purgatory and Hell. Why should a human 
being be launched upon this life of trouble loaded down with more ter- 
rors than really exist ? The genuine evils of actual fact are numerous 
and formidable enough for the average person to meet and overcome ; 
why multiply these by preserving the crude imaginings of barbarism ? 
To the mind of a timid child these demoniacal conceptions are vivid and 
real. They haunt the little brain by day and night. It cannot escape these 
terror-fraught phantoms imposed by adults who ought to have known 
better. Let the mother tremble, who mentions before her child the 
name of the devil, except in derision or to explain its fictitiousness ! 
She is committing a sin far more heinous than many she seeks to correct 



DEVILS. II 

in the little one. She is planting in fruitful soil a germ idea which may 
develop into a hydra, coiling itself forever around the tree of thought. 
Happy indeed is the child born of intelligent parents and so taught as 
to grow up laughing at such crudities. 

Hereditary modes of thinking are slow to change. Devils have 
always haunted the minds of men and they will continue to do so long 
after science has laid the delusion bare ; and upon this tendency to cling 
to the superstitions of the past there will always be a class of men ready 
to play, at the expense of their victims and to the substantial profit of 
themselves. They will keep on calling friends of the devil thoughtful 
men, who are doing all in their power to drive him out of the minds of 
humanity. They will classify among Satan's hosts persons who deny 
him an existence and a place of residence. Is it not evident that these 
anxious ones themselves are they who fear the loss of an old ally, a 
silent partner in trade, a dear bosom friend ? 

From observing his shadow, from seeing his image in the water, 
from dreaming and the like, primitive man concluded that he had two 
selves, the body and the ghost. The latter was wont to leave the for- 
mer and fly afar upon excursions. At death it went out for ever, though 
often it hovered for a time around its companion. Especially was this 
the case if the funeral ceremonies had not been properly performed or 
the body had been left to lie unburied. The ghosts of such would 
walk as demons. "Ha !" says the Slavonic folk-lore, "with a shriek 
the spirit flutters from the mouth, flies up to ihe tree, from tree to tree, 
hither and thither, till the dead is burned." How natural for the prim- 
itive man to believe that the ghost of his enemies would hover about 
after death seeking revenge ! We paint the devil black, but the negro, 
persecuted by Caucasians, paints him white. His name at Mozambique 
means Wicked White Man. Naglok (snakeland) was at an early period 
a Hindu name for hell, but the Nagas were a tribe of Ceylon, enemies 
believed to be born of a serpent. The wide spread belief in Werewolfs, 
men changed into beasts, was largely the result of demonizing hostile 
tribes. The land of foes was thought to be filled with devils ; thus Eng- 



S2 DEVILS. 

land was looked upon by continental peoples as a foggy realm of fiends. 
Giants and cUvarfs are imagined amongst the enemy, working evil, the 
one by superior size, the other by cunning. 

But not only men were conceived to have ghosts but also what to us 
are inanimate objects. And now if we can think of nature personified 
— every tree and pebble, fire, winds, water, earth, air, clouds — ghosts 
everywhere, above, below, within, without— we are in the right state 
of mind to appreciate how men came to believe in demons. Devils are 
the personifications of all the evils to which human flesh falls heir. 
The word Satan means adversary ; he represents the summation of the 
forces that resist mankind. 

Man's first bitter struggle wasfor something to eat. With rude imple- 
ments of stone and bone, he must hook his fish, bring down his bird, 
or slay his beasts of the forest. He saw the animals also fighting for 
food, killing and devouring one another. Everywhere was dogged 
resistance to his efforts to live. Surely hunger demons must be abroad, 
who demand all these good things for themselves. This was his expla- 
nation and from it grew up a host of hunger-fiends. The Karens of 
Africa represent their devils as a huge stomach floating in the air. The 
terrible Miru of the South Sea Islands attracted a flock of souls to the 
branches of a bua tree covered with fragrant blossoms, which then 
sunk down to the nether world where they were cooked in a mighty 
oven. In Travancore and other districts of India the demons are pic- 
tured with monstrous mouths and pot bellies. A widespread expla- 
nation of the eclipse of the sun is that a demon dog is devouring it. In 
most illustrations of devils they are represented as lean and hungry; 
"however fair in front he may be, you may detect him by the hollow- 
ness of his back, and he is usually too thin to cast a shadow." To 
appease the hunger of these demons food must be sacrificed. So the 
Hindu people cast victuals out of the window during an eclipse and the 
Highlanders of Scotland make the Beltane cake on the first of May and 
dedicating its fragments to the birds and beasts of prey, beseech the 
devil to spare the herds. All over the world gifts of fruits and meats 



DEVILS. 13 

are freely offered to relieve the craving appetites of these demons. 
If it necessitates a sacrifice on the part of the devotee, so much the 
better, for the devil will appreciate the food all the more. Hence 
comes the universal custom of religious fasting. It is needless to say 
that priestcraft will encourage this superstition, for from the drippings 
of the altar a nice little living may easily be caught. 

Next to hunger fire is most dreaded by savage man, and his idea of 
burning is not far removed from that of eating ; the fire demon has an 
insatiable appetite. Agni was adored by the Hindus as the twin brother 
of Indra, their sungod. Closely connected with the name of this fire- 
god is our word igneous. In that dread valley of Tophet or Gehenna, 
where the filth of Jerusalem was consumed, "where the worm died not 
and the fire-was not quenched," was built the idol of Moloch. It was 
of brass, its head being that of a calf and its stomach a furnace. Children 
were placed in its arms and burned to death while drums were beaten 
to drown their cries. From this sacrifice to a fire demon, in the valley 
ofHinnom, has come the popular conception of an everburning fur- 
nace prepared for the majority of human beings. Barbarous in its 
origin, monstrous in its growth, it has terrified the ignorant for many 
centuries, but, thanks to men who are not afraid to speak out their con- 
victions, its horrid mental curse is fading. The Chinese pay especial 
tribute to their fire demon, which fills the place of our Satan in their 
hearts, and in San Francisco may be seen, brought to our very shores, 
the joss burners celebrating before its image their Feast of the Dead. 
The quencher of fire is water ; hence devils fear it ; cross a river when 
pursued and you are safe ; be baptized in the Ganges or Jordan or rep- 
resentatives — sprinkle yourself with holy water and the devil cannot 
harm you. What a host of ceremonies have grown out of this idea ! 
When man conquered fire and made it his servant some of its fiends 
became kindly. There is the red-jacketed Kobold of Germany, who 
hovers around the fireside ; and about the cheerful hearth-stone dwells 
many a tricky imp and witch, lugging off shovels, tongues and brooms, 
at times to ride upon in their caperings. These are the pleasanties of 
demonology. 



14 DEVILS. 

Our forefathers were no more pleasantly disposed toward cold than 
heat. In northern latitudes each winter found them fighting against 
ice and storms, longing for the deliverance of spring, "then" said they, 
"Sun-god will slay the Great Serpent." Our word hell is derived from 
the name of the cold-demoness of northern Europe. She presided over 
an icy hole in mist and darkness. It was called her home, Helheim. 
So, that Cortland county youth, who remarked one zero morning that 
it was "cold as hell," was simply going back to original meanings. 
The northman's dream of Paradise was a rose garden in the South, 
whose glowing charms, with beauty for their queen, could only be won 
by the killing of the huge serpent, which ruled the surrounding glassy 
sea. It used to be the custom in England to bury persons destined for 
heaven in the southern or warm side of the church yard, the northern 
portion being reserved for unbaptized infants and executed criminals ; 
thus both classes were properly started in the direction of their respec- 
tive destinations. The word hades has a history similar to that of hell, 
being first applied to a frigid place and afterward to a hot one. Thus 
man builds for himself the sort of future he most dreads. In all north- 
ern countries rites are still celebrated to typefy the death of Winter 
and the birth of Spring. Puppets thrown into ponds, devil effigies 
burned, tar-barrel bonfires built, demon images whipped ; such are the 
exultations over the victory. This annual struggle was humanized as 
Sigurd killing Fafnir and winning the Treasure of Andvari ; it was spirit- 
ualized as Christ conquering Death and gaining immortal life. The 
wintry desolation is still imitated in Lent and the triumph in Easter. 
Easter eggs are symbols of the reproductive powers of nature once 
more set free from the bondage of cold. 

How does savage men explain the thunder peal, the lightning flash, 
the roaring wind, water spouts, floods, inundations and tides? Each is 
a demon seeking his destruction. In the Rig Veda of India there is a 
hymn to Rudra (the Roarer) beginning: "Sire of the storm-gods, let 
thy favor extend to us." A familiar passage, "I beheld Satan as light- 
ning falling out of heaven," bespeaks a universal belief in a tumble, 



DEVILS. 15 

that makes devils generally lame, at least in one leg. Dr. Schliemann 
has unearthed a temple of Helios (the sun) near the church of Elias, at 
Mycenae. Here the Christians, like the Pagans before them, pray for 
rain. Once it was Helios now it is Elias, who rides in his chariot of 
fire ; time has produced little change even in the name. In India Per- 
janya was "the thunderer, the showerer, the bountiful, who strikes 
down trees and the wicked. " Thunder demons are everywhere present 
and their bolts are found all over the surface of the earth. Geologists 
cruelly dispel the poetry of this belief by proving them fossils of extinct 
animals or other well-known rock formations. When a violent tempest 
arises the Cantonese say, "The Bobtailed Dragon is passing by." This 
demon was once overfaithful to a friend and in an unguarded moment 
lost his caudal appendage. His temper was soured and he has been 
tempestuous ever since. Out of Lake Titicaca in South America rises 
Viracvcha and journeys with lightnings for all opposers to disappear in 
the Western Ocean. "The sea became troubled," says the Arabian 
Nights, "and there arose a black pillar ascending toward the sky, and 
behold it was a Jinn (devil) of gigantic stature." Such are the water- 
spout demons. In the Apocalypse we read, "The Serpent cast out of 
his mouth a flood of water after the woman, that he might cause her to 
be carried away." From cuneiform inscriptions of Egypt we learn, 
that the terrible Seven, whom even the God of Fire can not control, 
"break down the banks of the Abyss of Waters." Tartak of the 
Bible is "the great destroyer," the God of the Tigris river. Leviathan 
"maketh the deep to boil like a pot." In the Chaldaeo— Babylonian 
cosmogony Anu ruled over the heavens, Bel over the surface of the 
earth and the atmosphere, Nouah in the under world. Nouah is the 
Assyrian Hea or Savior, the Noah of the Bible. When Tiamat the 
Dragon, the Leviathan, opens "the fountains of the deep" and Anu 
"the windows of heaven," Hea or Noah saves the life of man. The 
torrent which, cut off in one direction, makes progress in others, is 
demonized as a many-headed hydra. In California the Devil's Tea- 
kettle and Devil's Mushpot repeat the Devil's Punch-bowls and 



1 6 DEVILS. 

innumerable Devil's Dikes and Ditches in Europe. But the kindly 
dealings of these forces of nature were also deified ; from the churned 
ocean rose Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity, and from the 
sea foam came Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Beauty. Emerson felt 
this spirit in the northmen and passed it down in — 
"The gale that wrecked me on the sand, 

It helped my rowers to row ; 
The storm is. my best galley hand, 
And drives me where I go." 

Man's earliest battles were hand-to-hand fights with animals and 
every beast that could do him harm has been demonized. The hedge- 
hog for his spines, the fox for his cunning, rats for their gnawing, lions 
for their power, cats for their blackness, dogs for running mad, wolves 
for their ferocity, the boar for its power to defy snakes, the bear for its 
hugging propensities, and most of all the snake, the slimy, insinuating, 
poisonous serpent. Though he retains his horns and hoofs, Satan is 
still that "Old Arch Serpent." 

The Hindus, believing that famine was due to the will of Indra, their 
Sun God, have covered India with temples to soothe his injured feel- 
ings. In the midst of Egyptian barrenness looms up the Sphinx — 
the binder — in honor of the unyielding demon of the desert. Plagues, 
hurricanes, pests of all sorts, are due the world over to offended gods ? 
and a little introspection will discover the same beliefs still rampant in 
the educated nineteenth century heart. 

Many interesting demons have grown out of the personification of 
natural obstacles. Mountains are inhabited by devils who break the 
legs of travelers risking the ascent. Lot dared not escape to the 
mountains "less some evil overtake him!" Numerous altars are 
erected in these "high places" to counteract the fiends and many 
summits thus become sacred. But when the land is conquered by 
another people, bringing a new religion with new gods, the devotees 
see only demon-shrines in these altars. And so the conflict goes on 
from the cursing of the "high places " by the priests of Israel to the 
Devil's Pulpits of the Alps and Apennines. Ten-jo, the long-nosed, is 



DEVILS. 1 7 

a curious example of a mountain demon in Japan. He inhabits mount 
O-yama and natives dare not invade his crags, nor will they willingly 
allow " infidel Christians" to do so. The chief god of the Peruvians 
was Apocatequil who piled up mountain ranges for his castles and 
from the peak-towers hurled down rocks upon the plains. The Tyro- 
lese Alps are full of such beings. Devils are always opposed to bridge 
building, and naturally enough, for what difficulties are greater than 
spanning chasms. Many are the Devil's Bridges and many the scape- 
goats sent first across a completed structure to appease the wrath of 
the offended demon. Christianity baptizes these pagan rock-devils, gives 
them a Bible interpretation and a new name, but never expels them. 
When the modern engineer comes on the scene, backed by science, 
capital and steam, he bores a hole straight through the demon's realm 
and strings a magic trestle beautifully over his dizzy abyss. Then, as 
the resounding locomotive rolls fearlessly through the bosom of the 
awful mount, the natives begin to feel that there is power above their 
gods. 

With feverish brow and thirsty throat the child-man of the desert ran 
eagerly toward the water-promising mirage and beheld it mysteriously 
vanish ; his habitual explanation came readily into play and he called 
it Bahr Sheitan, Devil's Water. The northman, wandering cold in the 
night, sees a fitful fire in the distance and hastens thence only to tum- 
ble into a bog ; it is the devil with his ignis fatuus, fool's fire. An 
insect mimicking closely the stem of a plant is labeled the Devil's 
Walking Stick. Upon a projecting cliffof the Rhine sings the Lorelei, 
luring her lovers and their little boats to disaster upon the rocks below. 
Mermaids of the sea, swan-maidens of the air, sirens of all sorts are 
female personifications picturing the dangerous character of love. 
Men follow them enchanted to their ruin. Such are the demons of 
delusion. 

Who does not fear the night ? When we sink into slumber, when 
the pulse beats slowe'r and the breath slackens its rhythm, when the 
tide of life is at its ebb, then are we weak in every way. Then does 



1 8 DEVILS. 

timidity seize the bravest heart. Then are we conquered by thoughts 
which we loathe in the daylight. Then may evil deeds be perpetrated 
unseen. How natural that Satan should be the Prince of Darkness ! 
To children and to the child-man he seems ever near at night. To 
primitive man day and night were in a constant warfare. Light was 
swallowed up by Darkness. Night was the cavern where lay con- 
cealed the treacherous Panis (fog) who stole and hid away Indra's cows 
(the clouds.) Night was the realm of Hades (the invisible,) the cave of 
the hag Thoekk ^darkness.) In the cavern of night slumbered the 
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, whose genius is the dark-winged raven: 
The north-men have a moon-goblin called Glam, a personation of the 
delusive effects of its light, and from whom we get our word glamour. 
But before the advancing hosts of kerosene, gas, electricity and police, 
these devils of night must also beat a retreat. 

Sickness was originally explained as the departure of the ghost from 
the body and the entering in its place of an evil spirit. When the poor 
victim was completely " possessed," the devil within would throw him 
into spasms and contortions, make him foam at the mouth and writhe in 
agony. Often it could not be "cast out" and the man lived on, a 
demoniac. Elaborate systems of exorcism to free unfortunates of their 
spiritual load have been used in all times and countries. Dances, 
songs, talismans, magic knots, the number seven, holy bones and relics, 
the cross, abusive names of the demon, high-sounding names of an 
opposing god ; such are the spells employed for this purpose. The 
Singhalese alone count 240,000 charms against evil spirits. Great 
and powerful demons developed from these ideas, personifying dis- 
ease. Reeri is the Demon of Blood-poison in Ceylon. His form is 
that of a man with the face of a monkey ; he is fiery red, rides on a red 
bull and has eighteen disguises. Maha Sohon is the grave-yard devil ; 
he is 122 feet high, has four hands and three eyes, a red skin, the head 
of a bear, and is chief of 30,000 demons. This is not so wonderful, 
when it is known that on).y the priests and aristocrats were burned at 
death, the bodies of the people being thrown into an open hollow 



DEVILS. 19 

among the hills and left to decompose or be devoured by dogs. Verily 
Sohon, in the shape of badly located and poorly-drained cemeteries, 
is at work nearer home than Ceylon. These people have also a demon 
of madness similar to the Greek Mania. Typhus fever gets its name 
from the devil Typhon, whose lolling tongue and empty stomach yearn 
for corpses. Martin Luther's ideas of disease are appropriate here. 
He says : " A Christian ought to know that he lives in the midst of 
devils, nearer to him than his coat or shirt. There are many of them 
in the woods, waters, deserts and in damp, muddy places, for the pur- 
pose of doing folk a mischief. They are also in the dense black clouds 
and send storms, hail, thunder and lightning, and poison the air with 
their infernal stench. The devil has more vessels and boxes full of 
poison, with which he kills people, than all the apothecaries in the 
world. We may be sure when any one dies of the pestilence, is 
drowned, or drops suddenly dead, the devil does it." Such are the 
interpretations of the past; how different from the views of the modern 
physician ! The change does not lie in the character of the diseases, 
but in the light science has thrown upon their causes. If you still find 
yourself attributing sickness to offended Deity, come out of the dark- 
ness of superstition into nineteenth century thought ! Cease sacrific- 
ing and study the laws of hygiene. 

Death came into the world by Satan, says Christian civilization ; 
amen, says the savage, and in every case sets out to find the guilty 
fiend and kill him. Many an innocent native is thus murdered. Elab- 
orate figures of Death are built, covered with skulls and serpents, dead- 
men's hearts and hands. In Ceylon it rides upon a white horse, and 
John of Patmos was kind enough to send the same notion down the 
current of European credulity ; "I looked and behold a Pale Horse, 
and his name that sat on him was Death." Everywhere death has 
been personified and raised into a demon to be feared. It is time we 
were getting over this dread. Disease brings pain, death relief. Let 
us guard against the former with all the care and knowledge of our 
times and look upon the latter as a blessing which comes to our aid, 



20 DEVILS. 

when the sufferings become unbearable. We drape ourselves in black 
at funerals, the color of darkness and despair; this horrid custom should 
be sloughed off and brighter and more hopeful colors adopted. 

Originally demons were not distinguished from gods; good and evil 
actions were accredited to the same person. Elohim of the old Testa- 
ment is represented as the author of everything, and that there is still 
such a confusion in many minds is illustrated by the clergyman's ques- 
tion to a dying man ; " Are you not afraid to meet your God ? " The 
answer given showed his patient farther advanced in ethics ; " No," he 
replied, "it is the other party that worries me!" As civilization 
moved on, the principle of division of labor came into play even in 
these personifications, and, as man became able to make more acute 
distinctions between right and wrong, gods and demons moved apart 
in his mind and became antagonistic. In war a conquered people 
were made slaves and their gods Ab-gots, Ex-gods, or devils. Hence 
mythology is full of accounts of demons dethroned and expulsions 
from Heaven. Milton's Paradise Lost is a grand literary memorial of 
this principle. The words demon and devil, which we have been 
forced to use so often, are the same as the Sanscrit deva, " the shining 
one," and correspond to the Greek theos, Latin deus, Anglo-Saxon 
tiw, English "deity," gypsy " devel " — all names for God. This sepa- 
ration of the attributes of demons from those of gods slowly develop a 
set of personifications distinctly evil in their inclinations, devils indeed, 
who love the bad and delight in tormenting man. The great crowds 
of them formed into hierarchies and from their midst sprung leaders, 
king devils. From boiling springs, volcanoes, earthquakes and the 
supposed daily descent below the earth of the sun, their realms were 
located in the lower regions. Here reigned supreme the King of 
Superstitions. But a goodly knight comes forth to fight him. His 
name is Science ; his sword is comparative study, his helmet, cause 
and effect. " Attention must be given to things themselves," he says, 
"and not to the personifications which inaccurately represent them. 
The forces of nature are not demoniacal in their action ; there is no 



ANGELS. 2P 

fickleness of will-power. Good and bad are only relative terms. This 
act is better than that, if it causes more pleasure and less pain. 
Evil comes from being out of harmony with nature's ways. The 
powers of the universe are unfeeling but uniform. Be diligent, be 
thoughtful, be observing — notice how things move — get into line ; 
this is the only road to happiness." 



ANGELS. 

It is with peculiar feelings of humility that we recall those guileless 
days of childhood, when we stood up in a row and lifted our piping; 
voices in that pretty song : 

11 1 want to be an angel 
And with the angels stand, 
A crown upon my forehead, 
A harp within my hand." 

What a sweet little wish ! How sad that in adult life it should evapo- 
rate ! That charming vision of an evanescent figure, floating in the air,, 
shining white, with long graceful v.ings and flowing robes, speeding 
hither and thither through space on deeds of mercy, surrounding the 
glorious throne on high and filling all Heaven with songs of praise, — 
oh, happy delusion of life's morning, why speed ye hence at mid-day? 

When our primitive forefathers had built for themselves a complete 
system of ghost personifications, when they had given every object of 
nature a human spirit, it followed, that these shadowy seconds should 
gradually gather into two classes, good and bad. All things which 
seemed adverse to man became demons and devils, and those which 
aided him in his struggles were personified as gods and angels. At 
first the two characteristics were confounded in the same personage,, 
for most things cause both pain and pleasure, but slowly they moved 
apart, became distinct and eventually antagonistic. 

Closely allied to the idea of a ghost-soul is that of a guardian angel. 
In times of great danger, when death or disaster threatens the savage, 



2 2 ANGELS. 

if he escapes, he says, " my good spirit saved me." In his mind it is a 
special shadow companion watching over him and guarding him from 
the snares of the demons. The Watchandi of Australia secures this 
shade when he slays his first man. Taking up its abode near his liver 
it scratches or tickles him as danger approaches. It is known that in 
Tasmania the deceased father's second is considered as a guardian 
spirit to the son. The most important act of the North American 
Indian's religion is to secure his individual patron genius. The Esqui- 
maux sorcerer qualifies for his profession by getting the soul of a de- 
ceased parent for a shadow assistant. In Chili, when a native succeeds 
in any undertaking, he says: " You see I keep my guardian nymph 
still ! " And so it is throughout the barbaric world. In more advanced 
stages of civilization we find Socrates feeling a warning spirit within 
him dissuading from wrong, and Paul says regarding these angels : 
"Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them 
who shall be heirs of salvation ? " He evidently restricts their services 
to a favored class of persons. In the Roman world each man had his 
" genius natalis" . attending him from birth to death, and its image 
had its proper place among the household gods. Upon birthdays it 
was decked with garlands, worshiped with song and dance and pro- 
pitiated with incense and libations of wine. In the tomb of the Egyp- 
tian along with his embalmed mummy, was buried an image of his 
guardian angel. A few quotations from the Bible will prove that the 
Hebrews held the same ideas. Jacob says: "The angel which re- 
deemed me from all evil, bless the lads." When Peter was released 
from prison and came to the house of Mary, Rhoda, hearing his voice, 
was so glad that she forgot to let him in but ran to the friends gathered 
for prayer and told the good news; but they replied, " It is his angel." 
Jesus says : " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones : 
for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father." Martin Luther thought that a prince must have 
a greater, stronger, wiser angel than a count, and a count than a com- 
mon man. Perhaps in most minds this idea is now no more than a 



ANGELS. 23 

vague survival of olden times, but I fancy that many, when they say, 
"my conscience pricks me," are thinking of a ghostly being, who 
wishes them well and is warning them of danger. Such a question as 
the oft debated, "is conscience an infallible moral guide," would not 
arise if human judgment of right and wrong were the thing con- 
ceived. 

Parallel with the development of this idea of a guardian angel was 
that of an evil personal spirit, striving to decoy the man into danger. 
By his tent at night it said to Brutus : " I am thy evil genius ; we meet 
again at Philippi." 

Passing now from man to inanimate nature we are ushered into the 
company of the nymphs. These were the beautiful maiden ghosts of 
clouds, springs, brooks, grooves, rivers, glens, and grottoes. At first 
they were the kindly seconds of these benign objects of nature, which 
gave to man the welcome showers, shade, drink, food and protection ; 
but later they became detached from their substantial selves and were 
only thought to dwell thereabouts. Homer describes them as watch- 
ing over game, dancing with Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, weav- 
ing purple garments aud watching tenderly over the fate of mortals. 
They were thought to stir the soul of man with feelings of awe, joy, 
and delight, whenever he contemplated nature. Nereides were the 
nymphs of the Mediterranean Sea, daughters of Nereus, the wise old 
man at its bottom. The Naiades were nymphs of fresh water rivers, 
lakes, brooks, or wells. Some of them restored the sick to health 
which looks reasonable, now that we understand the curative power of 
mineral springs. Around the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem gathered 
also the blind, halt and withered ; "for an angel went down at a cer- 
tain season and troubled the water, and whosoever then first stepped 
in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." 

The nymphs of certain springs in Greece inspired their favored 
drinkers with powers of oratory, prophecy and poetry; and thus we 
glide easily into a conception of the Muses. Originally water nymphs 
they afterward become goddesses presiding over poetry, arts and 



24 ANGELS. 

sciences. The earliest poets in their invocation of the muses actually 
believe they were supernaturally inspired, but in later times it became 
a mere formal introduction to their poems. Oh, cruel lapse of years, 
how thou dost destroy these dreams of mystic inspiration ! We are 
clinging now to such a phantasmagoria, tear it not from us ; we have 
cherished it so long ! 

The springs from which all waters flow are the clouds, and these in 
the child-man's simple mind were bird-like maidens swimming in the 
heavenly sea. Capable of transformation from maids to swans and 
back again, a host of pretty stories have grown up about them. 
A gallant hero comes across some beautiful girls in bathing, steals the 
feathery robes of one, whereupon she is forced to follow him up and 
become his wife. But afterwards she happens to find her bird-garb, 
puts it on again, and immediately flies away a swan. The light, float- 
ing, feathery attributes of angels no doubt are the result of personify- 
ing the clouds. This truth impresses itself most forcibly upon the 
mind, when, looking over an illustrated edition of Dante's Vision of 
Paradise or of Milton's Paradise Lost, we notice how naturally the 
crowds of angels fade away into fleecy clouds ; the artist can not avoid 
in his perspective the actual history of the thought growth. 

And now we have to consider the character of an angel as denoted 
by the meaning of the name, a divine messenger. This carries us for- 
ward inlhe development to the stage when man had conceived of gods 
dwelling in the sky, surrounded by heavenly hosts, and needing swift 
servants to speed on errands. As the conceptions of good and evil 
became more definitely defined, as angels and devils moved apart in 
character, their habitual dwelling places also departed, the one beneath 
the earth's surface to the dismal lower world, the other to the peaks of 
holy mountains and thence to the sky. On high Olympus, the Grecian 
Zeus looked down upon the affairs of man and ruled over the gods 
immortal. When he gazed upon the hosts fighting about Troy, it was 
from the summit of Mount Ida. Moses must go to the top of Mont 
Sinai to receive the law tablets from the hands of Jehovah. These 



ANGELS. 25 

ideas do not seem so strange, when we remember, that in those days 
the firmament was thought to be solid and resting for support upon 
these mountain pillars. Angels were the messengers who sped upon 
the errands of Odin, Zeus, Amun-Ra, or Jehovah. These were as 
often male as female and among them may be found those who have 
become distinguished in their office. Odin had his crowds of Valkyrs, 
beautiful maidens, who hovered over the battle fields of the Teutons 
to select the worthy dead who should be admitted to Walhalla. In 
the Sanscrit poem, Mahabharata, the Iliad of India, is this consolation 
addressed to warriors : " A hero slain is not to be lamented, for he is 
exalted in heaven. Thousands of beautiful nymphs (apsaras) run 
quickly up, saying to him, " be my husband, be my husband." Maho- 
met cheered the hearts of his faithful with the same encouraging 
prospect. 

Zeus had his winged Hermes, born in a cave of Mount Cyllene, an 
undoubted personification of the wind. He it was who, during his 
earthly life, invented the lyre. At the entrance of his native cavern he 
found a tortoise shell and, stretching three mystic strings across 
its mouth, invoked celestial music. How clearly is seen the child- 
man explaining those zephyr tones, which play within the chambers 
of a cave or shell, and the solution is not wider of the truth than that 
now so often heard, that the roaring in a shell is the echo of the ocean 
surf. Among the duties of Hermes was that of accompanying as a 
kindly friend the shades of the dead in their journey through^the lower 
world. He also carries dreams from Zeus to man and the blessing of 
refreshing sleep. He was the herald, charioteer and cup-bearer of 
the Olympian God. Skilled in speech, graceful of action, swift as the 
wind, shrewd and cunning, he was the ideal angel of the Greek. 

Corresponding to Hermes in the Greek pantheon is Gabriel in the 
Hebrew. Daniel was favored with his presence to explain prophetic 
visions and in one case he was announced by name : " And I heard a 
man's voice between the banks of Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel 
make this man to understand the vision." But the context is careful 



2 ANGELS. 

enough to explain : " Now as he was speaking with me, I was in a 
deep sleep on my face towards the ground." Again Daniel says : 
While I was speaking in prayer the man Gabriel, being caused to fly 
swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation." To 
Zacharias the angel said : "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence 
of God and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad 
tidings." Luke also tells us that Gabriel appeared to Mary and an- 
nounced the birth of Jesus. Matthew speaking of this last appear- 
ance calls him " the angel of the Lord," and under this title he has to 
do with the Hebrew peoples fully as much as Hermes with the Greeks. 
Evidently the two are homologous conceptions. 

Michael was another principal angel in the Hebrew mind. His 
special province was to fight the battles of Israel against Satan. Saint 
Jude says, that Michael the Archangel, when contending with the 
Devil and disputing about the body of Moses, durst not bring against 
him a railing accusation, but said, "the Lord rebuke thee." Gabriel 
tells Daniel that when the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood 
him one and twenty days, lo, Michael came to help him. And John of 
Patmos writes: "And there was a war in Heaven, Michael and his 
angels fought against the dragon." It has often been claimed that 
the Greeks differed from the Hebrews in picturing their gods as 
contending with each other ; but that sweet harmony in the Hebrew 
Heaven so often extolled from the pulpit is plainly more of a desire 
than a fact. 

When Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden, we are told, that two 
Cherubims and a flaming sword, that turned every way, were placed 
at the east end to keep the way of the tree of life. Two figures of these 
beings were placed upon the mercy seat of the ark and a pair of 
colossal size overshadowed it in Solomon's Temple with the canopy of 
their extended wings. Cherubs were carved or wrought everywhere 
on the doors, walls, curtains, and furniture of the temple — a sort of 
divine heraldry. Their shape is illy defined in the Bible, except as to 
the matter of wings, and a reading of the various passages relating to 



ANGELS. 27 

them leaves an impression of a composite creature made up of man, 
lion, ox and eagle. Parallel conceptions are found in the religious 
thought of Assyria, Egypt and Persia, and are left in their monuments 
as the sphinx, winged bulls, winged lions, and the like. To the 
modern mind the word cherub suggest? a pretty little fat baby ; Raph- 
ael and the other painters have driven the repulsive animal character- 
istics all away and left us a sweet, chubby infant, whom everybody 
longs to kiss. The wings are there yet, but not half big enough for 
flight. 

Another interesting class of angels were the Seraphs. Isaiah says 
regarding them : "I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and 
lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim ; 
each one had six wings ; with twain he covered his face and with twain 
he covered his feet and with twain he did fly. ' ' Thus they were thought 
to stand and burn with adoration and love. Although the conception 
of the beings has faded away, the word seraphic has become a part of 
the English language and will ever express intensity and perfection. 

Charis, the wife of Hephaestus, was the Greek personification of 
grace and beauty. In early time there came to be many such maidens, 
called Charites, by the Romans Gratiae. One of those mystic numbers 
that always hover about mythology has asserted its power in this case 
and there are left of the bevy the Three Graces. They were beautiful 
girls in the bloom of youth, who gave festive joy and enhanced the 
pleasures of life by refinement and gentleness. They were in the ser- 
vice of the gods and hence were actual angels. Tfiey moderated the 
exciting influence of wine and accompanied Eros to cool somewhat the 
heat of love. Poetry especially was in their favor and they lived in 
friendly companionship with the Muses on Mount Olympus. The one 
inspired the poets, the other applied the poems to the embellishment 
of life and to the festivals of the immortals. 

So we have briefly followed man in his personification of the benefi- 
cent forces of nature as various sorts of angels. We have only taken a 
peep into the mind creations of those peoples most influencing our 



2 8 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 

civilization, and what an interesting crowd of beings have we dis- 
covered ! Angels, genii, nymphs, muses, graces, valkyrs, cherubs, 
seraphs, Hermes, Gabriel, Michael, Zeus, Odin, Jehovah— how differ- 
ent all these from the explanations of phenomena according to cold 
laws of cause and effeet, which have supplanted them in the cultured 
mind of the nineteenth century. We are losing the poetry of life, say 
you, with this study of mathematics and physics. Ah, no ; so long as 
these personifications are believed in, they are actual prose facts ; they 
become poetry, when we begin to see that they are only symbols of 
actuality, figures of thought A more perfect illustration cannot be 
ibund than that picture in Dante's Purgatory : 

" Along the side, where barrier none arose 
Around the little vale, a serpent lay, 
Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food, 
Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake 
Came on, reverting oft his lifted head ; 
And as a beast that smooths its polish'd coat, 
Licking his back. I saw not nor can tell, 
How these celestial falcons from their seat 
Moved, but in motion each one well descried. 
Hearing the air cut by their verdant plumes, 
The serpent fled ; and to their stations, back 
The angels up return'd with equal flight." 

SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 

It is perfectly natural that children should be delighted with the stories 
of the Old Testament. They picture the thought of the Hebrew people 
in their childhood period of civilization. The mental development of 
every individual is a miniature of the evolution of civilization, and as 
he advances in age he sympathizes, from time to time, with the thought 
of the historic period to which he corresponds. Some never outgrow 
their swaddling-clout, marked cases of checked development ; some 
come along as far as the middle ages ; some cease their progress at the 
eighteenth century ; and a few really become nineteenth century- 
adults. 



SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 29 

Three attitudes are usually assumed toward the story of Samson. 
The first is that of the confiding, obedient, easy going mind, which 
does not trouble itself to closely examine the ideas involved in a state- 
ment, to see if they are conceivable, but assents from habit to propo- 
sitions presented by authority. To such, at least in word, Samson is a 
real personage and the Bible account of him accurate history. The 
second attitude is that of the careless, common-sense, skeptical man, 
who does not propose to be "gulled" by anybody or any book. He 
disposes of the matter with one fell swoop, as a bundle of lies. The 
third is that of the man of science, who finds something worthy of 
study in all phenomena of nature, and none more absorbing in interest 
than those closely relating to man. He approaches such a problem 
from every possible standpoint, seeking the light which shall most 
clearly illumine the subject. If he is really imbued with the scientific 
spirit, he has no previous notions, which he will not gladly throw aside 
for what seem truer. He must be independent in thought— not bound 
by the tenets of any society or organization. His livelihood must not 
in any way depend upon his assertions of opinion. Socially he should 
be free from those attachments, which restrain the action of the intel- 
lect, warping judgment through feeling. Plainly there are very few 
persons properly circumstanced to think upon the merits of a problem, 
and fewer still who dare state their deepest convictions, pure and 
simple. 

When the study of language was confined to Latin, Greek and He- 
brew, very little was done in Comparative Philology. But when the 
English government opened to the world the treasures of India, the 
Aryan group of languages came to light. The study rapidly spread to 
other families, and following closely upon the heels of Comparative 
Philology came Comparative Mythology. The fairy tales, the nursery 
rhymes, the legends, the wise sayings, the epic poems, the supersti- 
tions, the religions of the world, were collected and placed side by side. 

A man who has always lived in one town is not very well qualified to 
judge of its character ; so a person, who has never pierced the cloud of 



30 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 

mythology in which he was born, is not likely to appreciate the mental 
atmosphere he breathes. It is only by calm comparison that a well 
balanced conception of any subject can be formed. 

First of all, we must fully grasp the thought that man has developed 
slowly from a state of mental childnood. If we would catch the spirit 
of the myth-building age, we must cast away all our abstract concep- 
tions, such as gravity, heat, light, sound, electricity, force — forget all 
our laws of nature and philosophical explanations of things. These 
are the growths of centuries — primitive man knew nothing of them. 
How did he explain the phenomena round about him ? 

Think for a moment what an explanation is ; simply realizing that 
something new and strange is like something old and familiar. Primi- 
tive man was familiar with his own feelings ; he knew little else. So 
he explained everythiug in nature by projecting himself mentally upon 
it — by personification. The stones, the trees, the hills, the earth, the 
clouds, the moon, the sun — all felt and thought. This was real to him, 
not figurative. He was surrounded by an infinite multitude of manlike 
beings, and all his talk would be in such language. Hence come the 
genders of inanimate nouns, which annoy the student of Latin, Ger- 
man and other grammars. If a single man related a story of an isolated 
event to one of his fellows, it would be soon' lost ; but personations of 
phenomena, which repeat themselves daily or yearly, would come 
down through time, subjected to the modifications incident to devel- 
oping man. Chief among these would be the ones connected with the 
sun ; and such an all powerful heavenly body as this could but be 
represented as a God. 

When his Father has gone to rest, Sun God is born and goes forth to 
fight with Storm and Darkness and make Earth fruitful. He has many 
amorous frolics with the Dawn Maidens and many midnight escapades 
with the Evening Twilight Goddesses. He is mighty in his own strength 
and slays his enemies. After victory he retreats and sinks to rest or 
dies. Something like this would be the chief elements in the primitive 
conception of a solar year. 



SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 3 1 

In the midst of this worship of nature was also developing ancestor 
worship. The superstitious awe paid to the Father of the family, and 
later to the Patriarch of the tribe, did not cease at death, but only in- 
tensified. His double, his ghost, was believed to accompany the tribe 
in its wanderings, to fight with them and bless with victory. The 
names of these ancestors had been taken 'during their lifetime from 
things which they seemed to resemble in character. This is the wide- 
spread Totem system, cropping out all over the world ; Great Bear, 
Red Cloud, Rising Sun, may serve as illustrations. Stories of the 
deeds of father gods would be told from generation to generation, and 
is it strange that they should get confused with the nature personifica- 
tions, and the exploits of the heavenly bodies become attached to the 
legendary heroes of the nation ? And it is but a step in thought, 
though it took ages in fact, for the conceptions to be withdrawn from 
their sources in nature and applied directly and only to the men. No 
longer do the relaters think of the sun, but Hercules, Sigfried, Indra 
and Samson are real persons. Thus came down to us a mass of semi- 
historic, semi-mythic wonder-tales, of beings half men, half god, per- 
forming marvelous feats and endowed with superhuman powers — the 
delight of children, the food of the credulous, the lies of the skeptic, 
the field of study for the scholar. 

A myth, then, may be defined as an explanation by primitive man of 
natural phenomena, through personification, his only means, which, as 
it was repeated from age to age, lost its original application, because 
of the developing mental powers of man, and from confusion of names, 
and at last became attached to heroic or historic persons. 

Now why is it evident that Sampson is a Sun God and the Bible 
account of him a genuine myth ? 

His name, according to the best etymologists, is most clearly derived 
from the Hebrew word shemesh, meaning sun. "As from dag, fish, 
Dagon, the name of the Fish God of the Philistines is formed, so 
from shemesh, sun, we have Shims-on, the Sun God." 



32 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 

He stands out distinct in character from the other Judges of Israel ; 
Barak, Gideon, and Jephthah fought at the head of armies or of small 
picked forces, but Samson goes forth alone and slays hundreds and 
thousands unarmed. The others, though they may be represented as 
receiving Divine apparitions, impelling them to action, still use human 
means to bring about their ends ; Samson acts with supernatural force 
and is a miracle throughout. 

But his mythic character will appear more vividly as we trace the 
story, step by step, and notice its correspondence to the phenomena 
of the sun. 

He is the son of Manoah, a word meaning "rest," a representation, 
like the more famous Noah, of the winter sun. After the labors of 
summer, primitive man conceived the sun to be tired and to have gone 
southward to sleep — a conception much like the resting of the Creator 
on the seventh day. The angel who predicts his birth disappears in the 
fire of the altar, which introduces the series of fiery incidents carrying 
a strong taint of solar origin. Like all Sun Gods, he must have his 
frequent love affairs, and the first one is with a daughter of the enemy, 
whom he weds. This is the marriage of the sun with the moon, 
daughter of night, and must end in a separation, for the two luminaries 
do not keep company long. On his first journey down to woo his 
captivator, he kills a lion, an emblem occasionally of sterility ; it is his 
first triumph — the youthful sun destroying the winter's dearth and 
warming it into fruitfulness. On his way to the marriage he sees bees 
in the carcass, which suggest a wedding riddle and he proposes it 
under a wager: "Out of the Eater came forth Meat and out of the 
Strong came forth Sweetness." This riddle was probably a part of the 
Hebrew folk-lore and the author of Judges weaves the popular solution 
of his times into the story. But it is very unsatisfactory, for we know 
that bees would not make honey in decaying flesh ; it would spoil and 
the whole swarm be starved out. A better explanation was close at 
hand but, of course, could not be seen in those days : "Out of the 
Eater (burner) came forth Meat (fertility) and out of the Strong (Sun) 



SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 33 

came forth Sweetness (fruitfulness). His bride weeps before him seven 
days, longing with female curiosity for the cue to the mystery, and 
when she finds it, straightway goes and tells it to the thirty companions 
of Samson. What could more plainly indicate the solar character of 
our hero than the recurrence of those mystic numbers, seven and thirty, 
the days of the week and of the month ? Here we deviate a little from 
the order of the narrative to call attention to the deception practiced 
upon Delilah. When she teases for the secret of Samson's strength, 
he fools her with the seven withes, the seven cords, and \\\s seven lccks 
of hair. The amount of the bet was thirty sheets and thirty changes of 
garment. While he is killing thirty Philistines to get booty sufficient to 
pay the stakes, his wife, supposed by her father to be deserted, is given to 
one whom Samson "had used as a friend." Here is the cruel separa- 
tion which we predicted. In the month called Jarad or Irad, the month 
of the "Descent of Fire," corresponding to our August, Samson lets 
loose his three hundred foxes, tied tail to tail with burning fagots 
between, and sets fire to the wheat of the Philistines. This is so 
plainly an action of the sun, that it is hardly necessary to say that the 
fox was an animal symbolic of solar heat, because of his color and 
long-haired tail ; and that at the festival of Ceres at Rome, a Pagan 
festival, a fox-hunt through the circus was held, in which burning 
torches were tied to the foxes tails, a reminder of the robigo or "red 
fox," a sun-blight of their fields. Then the Philistines burn his wife 
and father-in-law and in revenge Samson inflicts a great defeat 
upon them. Now comes the cowardly flight and hiding in the rock 
Etam, from which retreat he allows his countrymen to take him bound 
into the hands of the enemy. We are getting along toward autumn, 
in this legend of the year, and signs of weakness begin to appear — the 
Sun is retreating toward the South. But when he comes among the 
Philistines his bands "become as flax that was burned with fire" and 
<c with an ass's jawbone a heap, two heaps — with an ass's jawbone he 
slew a thousand men." Casting down his curious war-club, he names 
the place in its honor, and, becoming thirsty, water issues from a hoi- 



34 SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 

low place in the jawbone, and this pool is named En hak-kore, (Spring 
of the Crier). The writer tells us that both these names are attached 
to the locality in his day. These are plain cases of those frequently 
recurring mythical explanations of the configurations of the landscape. 
Ex-President White treats a similar one, Lot's Wife and the Pillar of Salt, 
in the February, 1890, number of Popular Science Monthly. The ass, 
like the fox, was in many nations sacred to the Sun God on account of 
its color, and is often prophetic ; witness the case of Balaam's ass. The 
crotched fbrm of the jawbone, its being cast dozvnhy Samson, and the 
coming forth of the water, suggest the Divining Rod and the Wishbone, 
symbolic remnants of the rock-cleaving, forked Lightning God, thrown 
down during the thunder storm ; and the name, "Spring of the Crier," 
fits well the thunder peal that follows. Rustics still use the Witch 
Hazel crotch to search for springs, and no child can eat a Thanksgiving 
dinner without longing for the Wishbone. Samson now pays a mid- 
night visit to a woman of questionable repute at Gaza, and the Philis- 
tines think they have him entrapped. But he takes "French leave," 
and, as a practical joke, takes along the gates of the city, posts, bars, 
and all, depositing them on the top of the hill opposite Hebron. This 
harlot, and Delilah, are sun-set Goddesses, daughters of darkness, 
with whom every Sun God must have frequent escapades. The humor 
of the exploit with the gates vanishes, when we see that they are an 
explanation of the great clouds of winter, appearing on the southwest 
at sunset and on the southeast at dawn ; Samson, the Sun, takes them 
with him and leaves them there. Now comes the last love experience, 
with Delilah. True to her sex, she pines for secrets, and now it is the 
secret of secrets, the cause oj his strength. After fooling her three 
times with false answers, he at last tells her the true source ; it is his 
long hair. While he sleeps she has it shaved off and he falls an easy 
captive to the enemy, who put out his eyes. The blind old man is 
called in to amuse them at a feast given to their god Dagon. But his 
hair has begun to grow again, and bending between the-pillars of the 
temple with one last effort he pulls it down upon them and dies. These 



SAMSON, THE HEBREW SUN GOD. 35 

last events are the ones of all to fasten the solar character of Samson. 
His strength is in his long hair — the rays of the sun ; while he sleeps, 
in the winter, or at night, or when covered by the storm-cloud, the 
rays are cut off. His enemies, the Gods of winter, darkness or storms, 
put out his eyes and laugh at his helplessness. There is a touch of 
sublimity about the scene of his death. He goes down between two 
pillars amidst the general destruction of his enemies ; by one sun's 
death a new one is born, which destroys completely the opposing forces 
of cold and darkness. Hercules also had to do with two pillars ; he 
sets them up at the mouth of the Mediterranean, those world-famed 
rocks of Gibralter. 

Many minor points of symbolism have been omitted in this brief 
survey of the narrative, and in those given, there is ample opportunity 
for shades of distinction to be pointed out by differently constituted 
minds ; for in such interpretations there can be no iron-clad rules to 
follow. But the atmosphere of mythology enveloping the story is so 
oppressive, that no one, who has the least susceptibility to its influence 
can resist it for a moment. Only such as cannot distinguish between 
accurate history and mythology at all, or are completely stunted by 
theological preconceptions, will fail to respond to such an overwhel- 
ming case as this. The evidence would be still stronger, if space 
allowed citations of parallelisms in other mythologies. It was by such 
a comparative process that it was clearly seen, that Semitic literature 
presents a background of primitive personations lully as marked as 
the Aryan. 

The interpretation of the author of Judges has been carefully avoided 
in this discussion. He was imbued with a spirit, which had been 
slowly evolving for many centuries subsequent to the age, which we 
wished to picture— the worship of Jahveh, the One God of the He- 
brews. He looked upon the story as history and explained all miracu- 
lous power by referring it to Jehovah. We must not confuse Jehovah 
with the broader conception of God prevalent now ; he was the God of 
the Jews, not of the world. Most people, who do not reject the account 



36 SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 

as utterly false, fall in with the spirit of the author, as nearly as the 
lapse of time and consequent growths of ideas will permit. But since 
that day another method of explanation has developed — the appeal to 
natural laws of causation. Now we know that Samson's strength, 
were it literally as described, would be accompanied by a corresponding 
weight of muscle, nerve, bone, digestive and circulatory system, so 
ponderous as to destroy his power to move. We are on the point of 
going over to the careless skeptic's position, when Comparative 
Mythology steps in and clears up the mystery. By its light we can sift 
and classify the folk-lore of the world ; the myths may be recognized 
and separated from real history, and, where the two are blended, it is 
possible to make a fairly accurate estimate of the facts. This is the 
modern spirit of historical criticism. Shall we fear its light ? Suppose 
it does dispel some of our fond thought-clouds ; better let them float 
away. What of the future? Shall we teach the children absurdities, 
which in later years will totter beneath the weight of adult intellect 
and fill the soul with doubt and confusion ? The world of thought, in 
which they are to live, will differ from ours. Things are moving on. 
Why dread investigation? Error dies, truth never. 

SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 

During the fifth century of the present era there came pouring down 
upon the decaying Roman Empire hordes of northern barbarians, 
white skinned, blue eyed, yellow haired, fierce and powerful. They 
were clothed in skins of wild beasts, whose heads with protruding horns 
formed a hideous setting for thickly bearded faces. These men loved 
freedom and despised a slave. They wooed their massive wives, not 
with nosegays and sonnets, but with gift of war-house, shield and spean 
and in the battle the shouts of women were heard above the clash of 
weapons. Mothers plunged their babes in ice-cold baths and gave 
them a war-club for a plaything and a bear's hide for a bed. It was their 
boast in manhood never to have slept beneath a roof. At new or full 



SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 37 

moon they gathered round a sacred tree and midst drunken carousal 
and noisy tumult passed upon political measures. As the great ox- 
horns of ale moved from hand to hand, ringing clash of spears on shields 
or the hoarse guttural groans of angry throats, proclaimed their yeas 
and nays. When the din became intolerable, silence was proclaimed 
in the name of the Gods. In war they raised their leader on a shield 
and swore him eternal devotion. They marched into battle singing 
wild songs with their shields before their mouth as resonators. They 
believed that only those who fell fighting on the field could enter Wal- 
halla, the palace of Odin ; thither they mounted on the rainbow and 
fought and feasted forever. Those who died of sickness or old age 
went to a land of ice and fogs, a chilly punishment for their cowardice, 
in marked contrast to the hot hell of southern climes. Surely we 
ought to take an interest in these Teutons, for they are our forefathers. 
We have been thinking of Rome, Greece, Egypt and Palestine so long 
that we have well nigh forgotten our origin. Sailing over the sea to 
England at various times they built that Anglo-Saxon-Danish-Norman 
race to which we belong. A study of the tongues of Europe has proven 
that all the peoples are descended from a common Aryan stock, planted 
on the table land of Bactria, in Asia, east of the Caspian Sea, near the 
sources of the Oxus and Indus rivers. From thence they have migrated 
southward and westward. Thus during the barbaric inroads upon 
Rome, men, checked by circumstances in their mental development, 
but grown brave and strong, were slaughtering their brethren of a 
milder clime, possessing more intellect and less muscle. But from this 
infusion of fresh and northern blood has come a better mind power, a 
nobler civilization, a Goethe, a Mendelssohn, a Shakespeare. To the 
mythology of these our fathers, the attention of the reader is invited. 
And now for the tale that runs through the folk-lore of the north. 

THE STORY OF SIGURD, THE VOLSUNG. 

Peace lay upon the land of Denmark in the days of Hialprek, the 
king. Contentment filled the hearts of his people, for the country was 
blessed with plenty and nobly governed. Protected from enemies by 



38 SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 

the sea upon all sides save one, and here by mountains, they were little 
disturbed by insurgents. There dwelt in the hall of the ancient Gripir 
a widow nam jd Hjordis. Her husband, Sigmund, was the world-famed 
king, who alone could pull the sword Gram from out the roof-tree of 
Volsung's Hail, plunged through to the hilt and left by Odin himself. 
Bravely fighting King Hunding he had died upon the battlefield, but 
not by mortal hand. When his hour was come, Odin appeared before 
him as a one-eyed man with a broad flapping hat and great blue cloak. 
Sigmund struck his good sword Gram against the spear of the unknown 
foe, but it was shattered in pieces. Thus disarmed he died. 

One bright morning of springtime joy filled the hall of Gripir, for 
unto Hjordis was born a son. Hardly had the child drawn breath, 
before the fond mother was telling it of the noble deeds of its father, 
of wars and battles and victories. The attendant maidens carried the 
babe triumphantly to King Hialprek and asked for a name. He thought 
on the deeds of Sigmund and pondered long in silence. Then rose up 
a man ancient of days and full of wisdom, who cried out : * 'Hail Dawn 
of the Day ! Hail Sigurd, son of the Volsungs ! Hail Victory yet to be !" 
Men heard the name and caught it up in the air, and to the Queen 
mother in her golden chamber it seemed as if Sigmund were living 
again. Amidst the summer season Hjordis was married to the King. 
Sigurd grew daily in might and goodness, in golden haired beauty and 
burning wit. 

Now connected with the court was a skilled smithy, a dwarf named 
Regin. He was beardless, of pinched and wan visage, and so old that 
no one knew when he was born. He begged of the King to be made 
the tutor of the young Sigurd, and as he had taught Hialprek all he 
knew, the request was granted with a warning, that he should withhold 
from the boy his crafty guile. This was promised with a chuckle and 
Regin asked : "How deem ye I shall die?" And they answered, that 
he would live as long as he listed and then in peace lie down. "Ah, 
no," he replied, "a beardless youth shall slay me !" Regin filled 
Sigurd's mind with portents of the great deeds he was destined to 



SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 39 

perform and urged him to ask the king-folk for a battle-steed. But 
Sigurd was wroth and said that he had many horses to his need and 
wished for no more. Then spoke the dwarf and his harp flew to him, 
and he smote the strings sweetly and sang of the host of Valkyrs, how 
they ride to the field of battle. Then the wrath departed from Sigurd 
and he hastened to the King and asked for the noblest of the stud- 
beasts that ran loose in the meadows of Gripir. His desire was granted 
and in company with Regin he went to select the horse. They fright- 
ened them down to the water side and forced the whole herd to take 
the flood. The current overmastered all but one, a cloud-gray stallion, 
which swam gracefully across, then wheeled about, plunged in again, 
and came dripping to Sigurd's side. None other could be chosen ; 
Greyfell is the God-designed steed. 

One day as Sigurd was sitting in the hall of his little old tutor, Regin 
sang to him of the dwarf people ; how long ago they were mighty, but 
the gods came among them and they took to working metal and deal- 
ing in venom and witchcraft. He said his father's name was Reidmar, 
a covetous man and a king, and he had two brothers, Fafnir, fearless, 
hardened and greedy-hearted, and Otter, who received from his father 
a snare, a net, and a restless longing for the wild woods. To Regin 
his father gave a hammer and fashioning iron, the living coal of fire, 
endless toil, and insatiable desire. He told how three God-folk from 
Walhalla, weary of sleepless sloth came down to earth, Odin the All 
Father, Loki the Begrudger, and Hahnir the Blameless. Otter from 
pondering so much upon the fishes of the streams was changed during 
a dream into an otter indeed and lay sleeping by a mountain trout-brook. 
As the three gods passed by Loki saw that it was an enemy in an 
animal's form and, hurling a rock with accurate aim, killed him. But 
Odin laughed and said it would not be long before the iron would ring 
in revenge upon the anvil. In their wanderings they came to the hall of 
Reidmar and amidst the glee and the cup felt themselves tangled and 
caught by the arts of the dwarfs. For their freedom they promised to 
bring to the hall all the golden treasures gathered by Andvari, the Elf 



40 SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 

of the Dark, and to fill the dead otter's skin with gold and to cover it over 
till not a white hair could be seen. Loki was sent to capture the wealth 
which he did with godly skill. Andvari strove to retain a shining ring, 
but was discovered and forced to yield it up. It was the source of all his 
riches, for from it ring after ring of gold would drop continually. And- 
vari cursed it as he gave it over, swearing that it should be the bane of 
every soul that wore it. Loki tried also to keep the ring but Reidmar 
made him throw it on the pile. At the sight of all this gold Fafnir was 
seized with a longing to possess it, and resolved to murder his father. 
The bloody thought was put into execution and Fafnir seized upon the 
treasure and proclaimed himself king. In later years men-lolk have 
told how up on the Glittering Heath there is a palace all of gold and 
within a great serpent abiding, Fafnir, the Gold-wallower. 

After telling all these things Regin besought Sigurd to ride thither, 
slay his snake-brother and win the treasure of Andvari. And the All 
Glorious made answer : "Thou shalt have thy will, and the treasure, 
and the curse I" 

But first the dwarf smithy must make him a sword fit lor the deed 
Twice he brings the marvelous results of his skill to Sigurd, but a stroke 
upon the anvil shivered the first, and continued blows dulled and dead- 
ened the edge of the second. Then Sigurd begged of his mother for 
the pieces of his fathers sword, Gram and taking them to Regin said, 
"Forge me a sword from these." It was finished in the month of May ; 
ruddy and great were the hilts and the edges fine and pale ; all down to 
the blood-point there ran a flame that swallowed the runes of wisdom 
with which its sides were scored. When Sigurd struck it upon the anvil 
the edges were not dulled a whit, but the anvil was cleft to the pave- 
ment. As he gazed in joyful satisfaction upon the piece of master-craft 
he said, "Thou shalt be called the Wrath of Sigurd." 

Two days later he leaped upon the back of Greyfell and rode off 
toward the Golden Heath followed by Regin, the one shining like the 
sun, the other little and dark. Many days they journeyed to the west- t 
ward, and at last, just at dawn, they saw the glimmer of the sea and 



SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 41 

below them a desert land. Pressing on they met a pale old man, in 
cloud gray raiment, one-eyed and majestic. He asked Sigurd of his 
mission and learning that he was to ride alone against the terror pro- 
ducing serpent, he told of a path in the rock, Fafnir's slot, whereby he 
wended to the water ; "Dig a pit beneath it," he said, "lie therein as if 
dead, till the serpent's body is over head, then drive the Wrath into its 
heart." Sigurd did as he was bidden, and when the great slimy form of 
Fafnir came tinkling and clattering with gold and darkened the light 
above he pressed up the eager point of the Wrath and leaped from the 
pit just in time to avoid the inrushing river of blood. In exultant voice 
he shouted out : "The dearth of the land is slain ! The treasure of And- 
vari is won !" Then he made a fire and roasted the heart of Fafnir for 
Regin to eat, but, while the dwarf was sleeping, he touched his finger 
to the simmering flesh and tasted himself. Then he grew wise in the 
lore of the dwarf-kind, understood the voices of the forest and became 
greedy for the golden treasure. Seven eagles hovering overhead cried 
unto him, urging him on to deeds of valor. He could not resist ; with 
a single sweep of the Wrath he clove off Regin's head. The treasure 
of Andvari now was his. He drew the accursed ring on his finger, put 
the Helm of Aweing on his head and the golden Haubirk about his 
body. The seven eagles kept singing above : "Bind the red rings, O 
Sigurd, what has the son of a Volsung to fear ?" He loaded the gold on 
Greyfell and rode away toward the west. 

Long hours he rides, turning a little to the southward and at last 
beholds a mighty mountain with a burning torch amidst its cloud-wreath. 
Urging on Greyfell he comes near at last ; it is Hindfell wrapped in 
fire. Right through the flame the fearless beast and rider rush and 
leaping down Sigurd runs to the gates of the shield-mount within. They 
fly open unbidden and he enters. There on a high mound he sees a 
human form lying in full armor, but the face is hidden. He longs 
to look upon it for the breath comes sweet from the helm. He draws 
it back and lo, the features of a beautiful woman ! Out flies the Wrath 
from its sheath and along the seams of the dwarf-wrought battle 



42 SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 

coat glides its singing edge. A maiden clothed in shining white linen 
is set free. She awakes, and wondering asks what power has rent her 
fallow bondage ? He said, "The hand of Sigurd and the sword of Sig- 
mund's son." Then she told how Odin had taken her fiom the earth- 
folk and made her a Valkyr, a heavenly maiden whose duty was to select 
the worthy dead upon the battle field. But she grew proud in her wisdom 
and the All Father sent her back to the world. As she came near 
Hindfell the sleep-thorn pierced her, and there she had lain slumbering 
ever since. But now the Norns had sent her deliverer and she was 
free. Long they talked and sweetly ; it seemed they were destined for 
each other. She said her earth-name was Brynhild and she lived in the 
land of Lymdale. Then he swore, that the sun should turn black in 
the heavens, if he sought not love in Lymdale, and Brynhild swore, 
that the day should die forever ere she forgot Sigurd. Then he set the 
ring of Andvari on her finger. 

Now the scene shifts to the land of the Niblungs, a swarthy haired 
race, who live in the mists of the south. Giuki is their king and his 
wife is Grimhild, she of the glittering eyes. The eldest son is Gunnar, 
the great and fair, and there is the wise-hearted Hogni and Guttorm the 
youngest and a daughter Gudrun, the white armed. Now Gudrun had 
a dream and told it to her nurse : "She sat by the door of Niblungs 
Hall and from out the north came a falcon with feathers all of gold and 
eyes as the sunlit glass. It hovered over the hall and stooped to her 
very knees. She took it to her breast and fair seemed the world and of 
infinite repose." The nurse advised that they go to the wise Byrnhild 
to seek an interpretation. The journey was quickly made. Brynhild, 
rejoicing to meet the dark haired queen, began at once to tell of the 
wonderous Sigurd. When Gudrun had told her dream the maid of 
Lymdale said it was full of goodly presage, and that some glory of kings 
should love her. But Gudrun continued : "Not yet has thou heard it 
all ; atterward it seemed that my breast was reddened and my heart 
was heavy within ; I laid my hand on the beauteous falcon and purple 
blood enwrapped me and the bird was gone !" Then Brynhild said, 



SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 43 

''Thou shalt live and love and lose and mingle in murder and war." 
Then the daughter of Giuki returned sorrowfully to her kindred. 

Now it was that Sigurd backed Greyfell for the land of Lymdale. 
He was received by the people with great feasting and a royal hunt, 
and many happy hours did the loving twain pass together. At last 
they parted with long regretful looks and renewed vows of never cool- 
ing passion. 

The son of Sigmund, ever restless for great deeds, rode off south- 
ward and came to the land of the Niblungs. He was joyfully welcomed 
by Giuki and the earl-folk were filled with gladness that one so famous 
had come among them. He went forth to war with them and won 
many glorious victories. But the white-armed Gudrun looked long on 
Sigurd and oft her face would flush with scarlet. She was loth to see 
him go to battle. One night they were feasting in Niblung's Hall and 
Sigurd had touched the harp-strings to the tale of his father's deeds, 
when Grimhild, the wise wife of Giuki, brought a horn of wine in 
which she had mingled deep guile and a tangle of strange love. Sigurd 
drank it and his soul was changed. His love for Brynhild faded. He 
grew sad, silent and brooding. He was seized with a longing for Gud- 
run, which grew strong and irresistible, until he renounced the oath of 
love beforetime sworn to Brynhild. They were married soon amidst 
merry festivities in the grand old hall of the Niblungs. Sigurd, Gun- 
nar and Hogni swore brotherly friendship upon the holy Wood-beast 
and drank the Cup of Promise ; but Guttorm the youngest, was afar 
upon the East seas, winning fame's increase, and swore not. 

Giuki, the ancient king of the Niblungs, was soon after carried to 
his mound upon the hillside and Gunnar ruled in his stead. His 
mother Grimhild, jealous of Sigurd's fame, kept spurring her son to 
effort and stirred his ambitions with pictures of Brynhild as his queen. 
And so they fare to the wooing, Gunnar, Hogni and Sigurd. But at the 
garth of fire Gunnar's steed turned back in fear, but Greyfell snuffed 
the blaze with delight. So Gunnar exchanged horses and armor with 
Sigurd, but Greyfell would not stir beneath the strange rider. Sigurd 



44 SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 

in the dark helm and haubirk of the Niblungs, and now completely 
transformed in voice and form into Gunnar's self, leaped upon Greyfell 
and rode grandly through the flames to win Brynhild for Gunnar. The 
ruse was successful ; Brynhild forgot her Sigurd under the sweet influ- 
ence of this new wooer and the next morning Sigurd rode back with 
the marriage plight. During that night Brynhild gave Sigurd the ring 
of Andvari. 

Then was another wedding among the cloudy Niblungs grander per- 
haps than the first. But now were there two queens in the kingly hall 
and bitter complications were imminent. The old love between Sigurd 
and Brynhild sprung up again, as they walked and talked together. 
Gunnar grew old, careworn and jealous. Gudrun and Brynhild strug- 
gled hard to keep their feelings unruffled, but finally quarreled while 
bathing in the river. Each claimed her lord was bravest and Gudrun 
proved her point by saying that Sigurd and not Gunnar had ridden 
through the garth of fire, and she flashed before the eyes of Brynhild 
the ring of Andvari. And so the hatred thickened in that hall until 
there was talk of murder. But who should kill Sigurd? Gunnar and 
Hogni had sworn undying love, but Guttorm the youngest was absent 
that night. To the bloody deed his jealousy and hatred are whetted 
by a cup of witch-drink, brewed by his mother Grimhild. Time after 
time he approaches the chamber where Sigurd and Gudrun sleep. 
Brynhild and the Niblung brothers are listening for the treacherous 
stroke. At last in desperation he springs upon the bed and drives his 
sword through Sigurd's heart. But the Wrath cast by Sigurd in his 
dying throes, smote Guttorm in twain as he fled, so that he fell within 
the door and without. Gudrun mourned many days in cold, pale 
silence, a frozen heart of sorrow. Then she fell on the body of her 
love with a great and bitter wail and all else in the hall were still. 
Brynhild pined for the loss of Sigurd and would not leave her bed. 
Gunnar was broken-hearted with sorrow at the decline of his beautiful 
wife. In a few days she died. The Niblung earl-folk built a funeral 
bale, laid Sigurd and Brynhild upon it and between them the pale, 



SIGURD, THE TEUTONIC SUN GOD. 45 

white Wrath. There is silence over the plain at noonday — the torch 
is touched — they are gone — the lovely, the mighty, the hope of the 
earth. 

It remains to point out a few of th^ mythical elements upon which 
the north-folk have built this story, and leave the reader to discover 
many others of a similar character. Let it be remembered what is the 
character of a myth ; a set of explanations by primitive man of natural 
phenomena, by means of personification or projection of himself upon 
the things about him, which in time become blended with actual per- 
sonages, legendary or historical, and at last are separated from their 
nature sources. 

Sigurd, of course, is the Sun, all glorious, all conquering, riding on 
his steed against the gods of night, cold and storm. His father, Sig- 
mund, and all the Volsungsare of a like character, for each yearly sun 
is a child of the previous one dying in winter. Regin, the dwarf, rep- 
resents life and growth, the earth's skillful smithy. Fafnir the serpent 
is darkness or cold, which the sun slays, winning the wealth of sum- 
mer's fruitfulness, the reproductive power of which is nicely symbolized 
by the ring of Andvari. The covering of the otter's skin, till not a 
white hair can be seen, is the melting of the winter's ice. The Wrath 
is the sun's rays, fit blade indeed to thrust through darkness' heart. 
The seven eagles urging Sigurd to action are the days of the week. 
Brynhild is the bright dawn, which the sun awakens from slumber, but 
which cannot go with him on his journeys. The Niblungs are the cold, 
darkness and storms of winter, among whom the sun spends his latter 
days and by whose hand he dies. Gudrun is their daughter, best con- 
ceived as the daughter of darkness, of night, the white armed moon, 
mourning cold and silent the death of her husband. Odin the father of 
of all the Volsungs shows how ancestor gods take precedence over 
sun-gods. He also represents the firmament, appearing in cloudy 
raiment, or a great cloak of blue, his one eye being the sun. Our word 
God probably comes/rom an old form of Odin, Guodan, and "the all 
seeing eye," so thoroughly impressed upon us in youth, finds a strik- 



46 HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

ing parallelism in the All Father of the North. While we continue to. 
worship on Sigurd's day (Sunday), we have allowed Woden's day 
(Wednesday), and moon's day (Monday), as well as all the other god's 
days of the week, to fall into neglect. 

What an interesting background of history and mythology lies 
behind our most common ideas ! Into the mead of Teutonic folk-lore 
have blown seeds from Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome and Palestine, 
and no intellectual excursion is more delightful than to go wandering 
midst the marvel taies and heroic poems of our race. And it does not 
lessen the charm at all to take along a modern book of analysis and 
locate these wild flowers in their proper classes of nature's mental 
flora. 



HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

In the sympathetic soul of the Greek, mythology flourished with 
tropical luxuriance. Amongst the crowd of characters embellished 
with solar attributes our attention is first attracted to Helios. His 
name is the Greek word for sun and he was clearly recognized and 
worshiped as a solar god. At early dawn he was said to leave his 
glorious palace in the east and ride in a fiery chariot over the arch of 
the heavens, reaching the highest point at noonday, and descending 
toward evening to his western gates, where he fed his horses upon 
wild herbs growing in the islands of the blest. During the night he 
sailed in a golden boat around one-half of the earth, arriving in the 
morning on time for the next day's drive. 

We are loth to pass by the beauteous Apollo, the god with unerring 
darts, who blesses mankind and wards off evil, the god of prophecy, 
song and music, the protector of flocks and cattle, the founder of towns 
and constitutions. Homer calls him Phoebus, "the shining one," and 
he was considered identical with the Egyptian Horus, god of the 
burning sun. He was often confused with Helios. 



HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 47 

But Heracles is the hero to whom we are irresistibly drawn as best 
exhibiting the characteristics of Samson and Sigurd. He is the demi- 
god of superhuman strength going forth continually to perform great 
and marvelous deeds. 

His mother was the virgin Alcmene, his father, Zeus himself. Upon 
the summit of mount Olympus, which the Greeks believed touched the 
heavens, and where the immortal gods resided, Zeus made boasts that 
he was soon to be the father of a man, who should rule over the noble 
race of Perseus. Hera, his wife, was touched with jealousy by this 
statement and prevailed upon him to swear that the descendant of 
Perseus born that day should indeed be the ruler. Then she hastened 
secretly down to earth, went to the city of Argos and hurried the birth 
of Eurystheus. By keeping away her daughters, the Eileithyiae, 
whose kindly presence lightened travail, the son of Alcmene did not 
breathe till the following day. Zeus waxed wroth at being thus check- 
mated by a woman, but could not break his oath. He therefore forced 
a promise from Hera, that if his son should perform successfully twelve 
great works imposed by Eurystheus he might become immortal and 
join the Gods of Olympus. 

But Hera fell to plotting the destruction of this ill-born babe. He 
was but a few months old when she sent two serpents to destroy him. 
Noiselessly they glided up to the couch where he was sleeping and 
prepared to strike ; but the boy opened his eyes, seized them one in 
either hand, and death was in the grip. The timid Alcmene began to 
fear the plots of the powerful Hera, and left her son out in the fields 
near Thebes. Hermes, the winged messenger of Zeus, espied him and 
carried him up to Olympus, where he put the babe to Hera's breast 
while she was asleep. But he bit so hard that Hera awoke and pushed 
Him aside ; the milk thus spilt produced the Milky Way. 

The boy grew strong in body and mind and became so confident in 
his own powers that he often defied the gods themselves. He was 
carefully instructed in chariot riding, archery, wrestling, fighting in 
armor, and in singing and playing the lyre. When his music teacher, 



48 HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

Linus, censured him for an ill performance, the prodigy struck him dead 
with his instrument. To prevent a continuation of such murderous out- 
bursts of passion he was sent to tend the cattle of Amphitryon, his step- 
father. These were much harrassed by a lion, the terror of the surround- 
ing country. He slew the beast and henceforth wore its skin as an 
ordinary garment and its mouth and head as his helmet; Meeting the 
envoys of King Erginus, who were going to Thebes to collect the annual 
tribute, he cut off their noses and ears and sent them back. This 
brought on a war which resulted in a glorious victory for the Thebans. 
In recognition of his valor King Creon gave the youth his daughter 
Megara in marriage. Hermes gave him a sword, Apollo a bow and 
arrows, Hephaestus, the god of fire and the anvil, a golden coat of 
mail, Athena, the goddess of wisdom, a robe of state, and he cut for 
himself a club in the woods of Nemea. The jealous Hera, seeing the 
hero thus growing in the favor of men and gods sent a demon of mad- 
ness to possess him. In his raving he killed his own children. Con- 
vulsed with grief because of these murders, he went into voluntary 
exile. After being purified of the deeds, he asked the oracle of Delphi 
where he should settle. She first called him Heracles and ordered him 
to live at Tiryns and to serve Eurystheus twelve years. 

In the mountain valley of Nemea there dwelt a lion, the off-spring 
of the fire-giant Typhon and the serpent-woman Echidna. Eurystheus 
ordered Heracles to bring him the skin of the monster. On his way to 
the fight he came upon a poor man named Molorchus, who was on the 
point of making an offering to Zeus the Father. "Delay thy sacrifice 
yet thirty days,*' said Heracles, "till I return with the lion's hide ; and 
if I come not back, then offer up to me as a hero." Hurrying thence, 
eager for the struggle, he soon found the lion in its den. His club and 
arrows were of no avail, so blocking up one entrance to the cavern he 
entered by the other, and grappling with the beast barehanded strangled 
it to death. The thirty days had passed away and Molorchus was just 
preparing for the heroic sacrifice, when Heracles came in triumph and 
together they offered up to Zeus the Saviour. Shouldering the lion's 



HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 49 

carcass he carried it home to Eurystheus, who, frightened at the gigan- 
tic strength of the hero, took to his heels and sent word that in the 
future Heracles might please report the results of his exploits outside 
the city gates. 

Anothor monster born of the same parents and cherished by Hera, 
dwelt in a swamp near Argos, the dreaded Lernean hydra. It had 
nine heads, the middle one being immortal. With burning arrows 
Heracles hunted it up and tried to smash its heads with his club or to 
cut them off with a sickle. But for every one destroyed two new ones 
sprang forth. With the assistance of his servant Iolaus, he at last suc- 
ceeded in burning away all the heads but the ninth and this he buried 
under a huge rock. Then he dipped his arrows in the hydra's bile and 
henceforth their poisonous wounds were always fatal. But Eurystheus 
claimed this victory unfair ; since Heracles had not won alone. 

Once Zeus, in his amorous excursions about the earth, pursued a 
beautiful nymph, Taygete, until she was rescued by Artemis, the chaste 
goddess of the hunt, who transformed her into a cow. In gratitude 
toward her preserver Taygete dedicated the golden antlered, brazen 
footed stag of Ceryneia to Artemis. Heracles was ordered to bring 
this animal alive to Mycenae. For a year he followed it patiently 
through many lands, at last wounded it and started homeward with it 
on his shoulders. Meeting Apollo and Artemis on his way, he soothed 
their feelings angered at the outrage to their sacred stag, and carried 
it safely to Mycenae. 

Next he was given the task of capturing alive the Erymanthian boar, 
which had come down from mount Erymanthus to the terror of the 
country. While pursuing this animal he came upon the centaur Pho- 
lus, a being half man, half horse, who had received from Dionysus, the 
youthful god of wine, a rare cask of that beverage. Heracles could 
not let such a golden opportunity slip and opened it. The delicious 
fragrance attracted a crowd of centaurs who besieged the grotto. But 
Heracles drove them all away, wounding Pholus accidentally with one 
of his deadly arrows. He chased the boar for months through the 



50 HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

deep snow until it was completely tired out, then caught it in a net and 
returned with his prize to Eurystheus. 

Augeas, king of Elis, was wondrous rich in cattle and the extent of 
his stables was exceedingly great. "Let Heracles clean them in a 
single day," said Eurystheus. Willingly to the foul work our hero 
journeys and seeks to turn an honest penny for his labor. He offered 
to do the job for a tenth part of the cattle. Augeas accepted, seeing 
no possible outcome but forfeiture. Heracles turned a couple of rivers 
through the stables and cleaned them as they never were cleaned 
before. Again Eurystheus claimed fraud, as Heracles had stipulated 
for pay. 

In a lake near Stymphalus, innumerable swarms of voracious birds 
had taken refuge from the wolves. They had brazen claws, wings and 
beaks, used their feathers as arrows and ate human flesh. They had 
been raised by Ares, the god who delights in the horrors of war. It 
was given to Heracles to expel these Stymphalian birds. The kindly 
protecting Athena furnished him with a brazen rattle, which started up 
the birds and made them easy targets for his arrows. 

Poseidon, the god of the Mediterranean, had sent out of the sea to 
Minos, king of Crete, a beautiful bull. It was intended for a sacrifice 
to the sea god himself, but Minos was so charmed with the animal that 
he kept it and substituted another. Poseidon turned it mad and it 
became the terror of the island. Heracles was to catch the bull and 
bring it to Mycenae. Once more our hero comes in with the result of 
his expedition on his shoulders, but it was an unlucky guest for his 
taskmaster. Heracles set it free and it continued its wild roamings 
throughout the lands of Greece. 

Diomedes, king of the Bistones in Thrace, fed his horses on human 
flesh. Eurystheus thought that to capture these carnivorous beasts 
would be a fatal task. Heracles took along some companions, made 
a sudden attack on the guards of the stables, captured the animals 
and got away to the sea coast. Here he was overtaken by the Bistones 
and a battle ensued. His friend, left in charge of the mares, was eaten 



HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 5 1 

up during the fight, but Heracles killed Diomedes and threw his body 
before them. After eating the flesh of their master they grew tame 
and were easily managed. 

The Amazons were a race of masculine women, living about the 
Caucasus mountains, who cut off their breasts and rode to battle like 
men. Hippoiyte, their queen, had been given a magic girdle by Ares, 
and the daughter of Eurystheus longed for its possession. Heracles 
was sent to bring it. Sailing in a single ship with volunteer compan- 
ions, his long journey was rich with adventures, towns, seas, countries 
and peoples tracing their names and origins to this excursion. Hip- 
poiyte at first received him kindly and promised to give him the girdle. 
But the ever watchful Hera in the disguise of an Amazon was on hand 
to report that their queen was being robbed by a stranger. They rose 
in resistance and Heracles, distrusting Hippoiyte, killed her and ran 
off with the girdle. 

Geryones, a monster with three bodies, lived in the island of Ery- 
theia (the reddish), which lay under the rays of the setting sun. He 
had stolen a heard of red oxen, which fed with those of Hades and 
were guarded by the giant Eurytion and the two-headed dog Orthrus. 
These oxen must be brought to Eurystheus. On his way thither Her- 
acles conquers kings, founds cities, becomes the father of numerous 
peoples and erects the great rock pillars of Gibralter. Annoyed by 
the heat of the sun, he shot an arrow at Helios, who in admiration of 
his boldness, presented him with a golden boat in which he sailed to 
Erytheia. He slew the giant and the dog, seized the oxen, and sailed 
away. Returning he gave back the boat to Helios and travelled by 
land over the Pyrenees and Alps. One of his oxen jumped into the 
sea and swam to Sicily, where Eryx, the son of Poseidon, caught and 
put him among his own. Heracles followed him up, killed Eryx and 
brought back the ox. Afterward Hera made them mad, but of no 
avail, they were all brought in at last. 

Our hero was now sent to bring the golden apples of Hesperides. 
These were a wedding presant from Ge (earth) to Hera and she had 



52 HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

entrusted them for safe keeping to the sweet singing nymphs, Hespe- 
rides, and the dragon, Ladon, who lived on mount Atlas, in the country 
beyond the north wind, the land of the Hyperboreans. Wandering 
through Europe, Asia and Africa in a long and tedious search, by the 
aid of river nymphs and Nereus, the wise old man at the bottom of the 
sea, he at last found the garden of the Hesperides. On his way he had 
saved the life of Prometheus by killing the vulture which consumed his 
liver, who advised him to send Atlas after the apples, while he tem- 
porarily held*the weight ot the heavens upon his shoulders. Atlas 
returning with the fruit offered to carry them himself to Eurystheus. 
But Heracles was too shrewd for him, saw his scheme to get rid of his 
h3avy back-wo:k, contrived to get the apples and hastened away. 

Eleven toils being thus accomplished, the last must be a task beyond 
all hope of success. "Bring forth from Hades," said Eurystheus, 
"the three-headed dog Cerberus. " Accompanied by the winged Her- 
mes and the protecting Athena, he decended into the lower regions 
near Cape Taenarem. Most of the shades fled before him ; Meleager 
the hero who killed the Calydonian Boar, and Medusa, the snake- 
haired Gorgon, alone remained. These Heracles longed to fight, but 
Hermes commanded that they be left in peace. Near the gates he found 
Theseus and Peirithous, two heroes second only to himself in fame. 
They streatched out their hands imploringly for aid. He freed Theseus, 
but when he would do the same for Peirithous, the earth began to 
tremble. He killed one of the oxen of Hades that he might give the 
shades some blood to drink. Then he fought with the soul of Menoe- 
tius, whom Zeus struck down with a flash of lightning during his bat- 
tle with the Titans. Pluto, the ruler down below, allowed Heracles to 
take his dog, provided it should be done without the use of arms. He 
found him barking on the banks of Acheron, the river of Hades, and 
regardless of his growls and bites and writhings, carried him up above. 
Cerberus could not bear the light of day and drooled profusely, his 
spittle bringing forth the poisonous plant, aconitum. Eurystheus did not 



HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 53 

care to keep this pet and so Heracles took him back to his subterra- 
nean home. 

Now his twelve labors were done and he was free. Gladly he 
returned to his beloved Thebes. But his marriage with Megara must 
be displeasing to the gods for he had been driven to murder the fruit of 
the union. Thus reasoning he gave her to his faithful friend Iolaus. 
Eurystus, his instructor in the use of the bow, had promised his daughter 
the beauteous Iole, to him who should excel the master and his sons in 
archery. Heracles had loved Iole from the first bright morning that 
his eyes had fallen on her radiant face. To surpass the mediocre feats 
of Eurystus was naught to him whose arrows were the gift of Apollo. 
But when he claimed the prize, the father would not give his daughter 
to a man who had murdered his own children. In vain did her brother 
Iphitus, plead with his sire to keep his promise. Soon after the oxen 
of Eurystus were missing. He laid the theft to Heracles. Iphitus 
once more defended him and together they started out to find the cattle. 
But Heracles in one of his mad fits threw Iphitus from a wall and 
killed him. Again he sickens with remorse and appeals for purifica- 
tion to the Pythia of Delphi. She would not listen. Meeting Apollo 
a desperate fight ensues, which ends only when Zeus sends a separating 
flash of lightning. At last the oracle promises healing, if he will serve 
three years for wages and pay them to Eurystus in atonement for the 
murder. Once more our hero is a slave, and this time to a woman, the 
widow Omphale, queen of Lydia. At times he spins wool and puts on 
female clothes, while the widow wears the lion's skin. But when his 
days of servitude are past, his strength comes back again and he renews 
his ceaseless expeditions. In one of these he fought the river-god, 
Achelous, for the possession of Deianeira, and conquering, demanded 
her for his bride. Three years oi married life passed by when he acci- 
dently killed Deianeira's little brother, Eunomus. The murder was 
pardoned, but Heracles and his wife must go into exile. At the river 
Euenus he hired the centaur Nessus to carry Deianeira across while he 
himself waded. During the passage his wife screamed out as if in dis- 



54 HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

tress, and, as the centaur neared the shore, Heracles shot an arrow into 
his heart. In dying agonies the ceutaur cried to Deianeira ; "Take 
my blood with you ; it alone will preserve the love of your husband !" 
Soon after our voracious hero killed an ox and ate it entire at one meal. 
On he wanders tirelessly, killing and conquering, until at last he raises 
an army to take vengeance on the father of Iole. The old man falls, 
and his son, before the death-dealing hero and Heracles carries away 
his love a prisoner. Upon a promitory of Euboea he erects an altar to 
Zeus and prepares to offer up to the good Father with Iole by his side. 
He sends for a pure white robe. Deianeira, hearing of Heracles' gen- 
tle companion, steeps the garment in ointment made from the blood of 
the centaur Nessus. Reverently he draws the fateful cloak about his 
powerful form. But as his body warms the cloth, which is saturated 
with the centaur's blood poisoned by Heracles' own arrow, stinging 
pains dart through his system and he writhes in terrible agony. He 
throws the folds violently from off his body but they cling and tear out 
great strips of flesh. He seizes his servant, who brought the cloak, 
by the heels and hurls him into the sea. He is carried before Deian- 
eira, his massive muscles quivering with pain. In remorse at her mis- 
deed, she hastens hence and hangs herself. To the top of Mount Oeta 
he resolutely climbs, builds for himself a funeral pile, ascends and 
orders it set on fire. No one dares obey. * To a shepherd passing by 
he pleads ; "Oh, Poeas, for the sake of the immortal gods have mercy 
on my suffering and lend the flame that ends my toil below!" The 
tender heart of the shepherd is touched with pity. The torch is touched 
and lo, hardly has the fire begun to lap its scarlet tongues about the 
agonized man , when a cloud comes down from heaven and amidst crash - 
ing thunder peals Heracles ascends to Olympus and becomes a god 
immortal ! Here a happy recognition with Hera followed which was 
made perfect by his marriage with her daughter, Hebe, the beautiful 
goddess of youth. 

The great number of exploits accredited to this prolific hero have 
by no means been exhausted: in this sketch. He was extensively wor- 



HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 55 

shiped throughout Greece and under the name Hercules in the Roman 
Empire. The cities of Egypt have accounts of him older than the 
Hellenic and they in turn point to Phoenicia as a still earlier foun- 
tain. Varro is said to have found forty-four heroes bearing the name 
of Heracles, and the Greeks discovered many gods in other lands who 
seemed to them only prototypes of their athletic champion. 

All this is very natural when we remember that the sun shines for 
all. And this leads us to the consideration of the nature foundations 
upon which these myths have been built. The prominent idea of Hera- 
cles' labors is that of tremendous power in bondage ; it pictures the 
sun compelled to pursue its daily course. This spirit is only touched 
in Samson, when he allows himself to be taken bound into the midst 
of the enemies. The grouping of his toils into twelve tasks suggests 
the twelve months of the year and the thirty days needed for the killing 
of the Nemean lion, the days of the month. Hera, the name of the 
wife of Zeus, denotes her character as the queen of the blue heavens. 
The serpents, with which she tries to destroy the infant Heracles, are 
the powers of darkness. Hermes the winged messenger of Zeus, is the 
wind. Linus, the murdered music teacher, was mourned by Boetian 
maidens because he was raised among the lambs and torn to pieces by 
dogs ; he is the dirge-like breeze springing up while the sky is flecked 
with fleecy clouds and dying in the raving storm. Heracles, like Sam- 
son, is a lion slayer and both killed one early in life ; it is in the spring 
time of the year that the dearth of winter is destroyed. Hephaestus is 
the earth's smithy and represents the building power of heat; he is 
the homolog of the Teutonic Regin, the former being maimed, the 
latter a dwarf. Atlas is a personification of a mountain, which to the 
early Greeks did indeed hold the heavens upon its shoulder. Athena, 
Megara and Iole are goddesses of the dawn, bright Auroras like Bryn- 
hild of the north. But what means this raving madness of Heracles ? 
We are in a southern clime now and often the sun grows murderous 
hot ; then friends and foes alike sink before his rage. The Nemean 
lion is shown by its parentage to represent darkness.. The Lernaian 



56 HERACLES, THE GREEK SUN GOD. 

Hydra stands for the phenomena of river inundation ; one head being 
cut off, two new ones spring forth ; one is immortal and can only be 
suppressed. Heracles finds this hydra in a swamp by the light of his 
burning arrows, the sun's rays, and he burns away all the heads but 
the immortal one. The stag of Ceryneia with its golden antlers and 
brazen feet is a cloud tipped with yellow light. The sun pursuing this 
beautiful deer and trying to wound it with his rays is a poetical gem of 
personification. The nymph Taygete chased by Zeus is a repetition of 
the same idea. She is transformed into a cow, the most common of all 
representations for a cloud, pointing to those pastoral days when the 
welcome showers were the giving down of milk by the heavenly herds. 
The Erymanthian boar hunted through the deep snows is the darkness 
and cold of winter. The cleaning of the stables of Augeas illustrates 
the effect of rain and rising streams upon the decay and death of a 
drought. The stymphalian birds are the storm-clouds afraid of the 
wolves (Lukoi), the word being almost identical with Leukoi, the sun's 
rays. In the mad bull of Crete, we again see the powers of darkness ; 
though subdued he is set free and continues to afflict the land. Clouds 
and fogs are dispersed in the taming of the mares of Diomedes. The 
girdle of Hippolyte is an emblem of reproductive power in the earth, 
like the ring of Andvari. The storm clouds are again presented in the 
cattle stolen by Geryones and the legend of the apples of Hesperides 
combines the reproductive idea with that of the clouds ; they were a 
wedding present from Ge, and the Greek word for apples and clouds 
is almost identical. The descent of Heracles into the nether world, 
overcoming the hell-dog Cerberus, is a most vivid picture of the sun's 
conflict with darkness ; to primitive man he had such a fight every night. 
The contest with Apollo ending with a lightning flash is a representa- 
tion of a thunder storm. Heracles has innumerable love affairs, two 
wives, and his children are legion. All this expresses the power of the 
sun to make the earth fruitful. The weakening toward autumn is shown 
in his spinning wool and wearing the garb of the widow. But like 
Samson, his strength revives — the warm days after the frosts, Indian 



JONAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 57 

summer. Deianira is the daughter of darkness who causes his death. 
In the closing scenes we see a glorious sunset, the forked flames as 
they rise about his form being the blood red rays which stream from 
the body of the dying sun. 

In conclusion let it be borne in mind, that what to the later Greeks 
and to us is poetical imagery, to children of nature, who first thought 
the thoughts and told the tales, was the best explanation of which they 
were capable. Thus the science of the past becomes the poetry of the 
present. 



JONAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 
The spirited discussions which have taken place from time to time 
between hard hearted skeptics and soft hearted believers over the 
marvelous experience of Jonah, if written out would make an interest- 
ing chapter of human history. When the former seeks to nail his oppo- 
nent with accurate figures as to the dimensions of a whale's throat and 
the consequent inability of the beast to swallow a man, he is deftly 
eluded with the statement, that the Bible mentions no whale at all, but 
"a great fish," Then he calls attention to the impossibility of a man's 
living three days without food or air in the confined space of a fish's 
stomach, swimming in gastric juice and breathing the stench of decom- 
posing food matter. He is calmly informed that miracles are not to 
be explained by natural laws ; they are mysterious and inexplicable ; 
"they can not be understood but they are so." Now all this difficulty 
comes from looking at these myths while still remaining within their 
f°ggy influence. Step outside for a moment where the atmosphere is 
clear, consider not only the Hebrew Jonah but also the Phoenician 
Heracles, the Hindu Pradyumna, the Egyptian Osiris, the Assyrian 
and Babylonian Oannes, the Philistine Dagon, the Greek Apollo, and 
a host of similar characters sprinkled throughout the mythology of the 
world, and Jonah will no longer loom up as an isolated marvel, but 
will fall into his proper place among the many semi-historic characters 
endowed with solar attributes. 



5 S JONAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 

Let us then proceed to relate a few of these tales in a concise manner 
one after another and see if from their juxtaposition we cannot divine 
the meaning common to them all. 

First we will notice the marine experience of Jonah himself. 

He is said to have been commanded of the Lord to go to Ninevah 
and cry against it, but he did not relish the task and took ship at Joppa 
to run away. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and 
there was a mighty tempest so that the ship was likely to be wrecked. 
The sailors, with the universal inconsistency of humanity, cried every 
man to his god, and threw out the wares to lighten the ship. But 
Jonah was snoring below. The captain stirred him up and put him on 
his knees. Then they cast lots to see who was to blame for the storm 
and Jonah was the unlucky man. They asked what should be done to 
him to calm the waves, and he told them to throw him in. This done 
the sea ceased from its raging. But a great fish swallowed up Jonah 
and he was in its belly three days and three nights. "And the Lord 
spake unto the fish and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." 

In all essential points the story of the Phoenician Heracles is an 
exact repetition of the above. He descended fully armed into the 
belly of a fish and emerged again in first-class condition after a three 
days sojourn. 

Passing to the myth of the Hindu Pradyumna, we have a tale which 
varies just enough to avoid monotony. 

The god of love, the Eros of the Greeks and the Cupid of the Ro- 
mans, in India is called Kama. Once he was rash enough to wound 
Siva, the third person of the Hindu Trinity, with one of his flowery 
arrows. Siva with a flash of fire from his central eye reduced Kama 
from a corporeal form to a mental essence. But upon the intercession 
of his wife, Parvati, he relented from his severity and consoled the 
afflicted Reti, widow of Kama, with the assurance that she should 
regain her husband, when he snould be born again on the earth as Prady- 
umna, son of Krishna. In the meantime Reti was made a servant of 
the tyrant demon Sambara and mourned her wretched fate in bitter 



JONAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 59 

lamentations. The promise of Siva was in due time fulfilled. But 
Sambara seized the infant soon after its birth, put it into a chest and 
threw it into the sea. It was swallowed by a fish, which was afterward 
caught and brought to the tyrant's own house to be eaten. It fell to 
the lot of Reti to open the fish and, finding the chest and the baby she 
nurtured it secretly. He grew up to maturity and in revenge slew the 
malignant Sambara. The youth had always considered Reti as his 
mother, but now the delusion was dispelled and they were reunited in 
wedlock, the god of love with the goddess of pleasure. 

In the myth of the Egyptian Osiris the hero is less fortunate than 
Jonah and Pradyumna. 

Osiris introduced civilization into Egypt, and then wandered over 
the world acquainting men with a knowledge of agriculture and the 
arts. On his return the demon Typhon laid a plot for him. Having a 
beautiful carved chest which exactly fitted Osiris, he offered at a grand 
entertainment to give it to any one who could lie down in it. As soon 
as Osiris made the trial Typhon clapped on the cover, nailed it fast and 
threw it into the Nile. Isis, the wife of Osiris, wandered mournfully 
along the bank in search of the body, at last found the chest and 
brought it home. But in her absence Typhon discovered it and mangling 
the body into many fragments, scattered them over all the land. Isis 
picked them up one by one and buried them ; hence Egypt was rich in 
the graves of Osiris. 

In the Assyrian and Babylonian mythology we read : "During the 
day-time Oannes held intercourse with men, taught them sciences and 
arts, the building of cities and temples, laws and the measurement 
of planes, how to sow and reap ; in a word, everything necessary to 
social life , but when the sun set, Oannes fell into the sea, where he 
used to pass the nighty Oannes was represented as half fish and half 
man and is thus identical in character with the Canaanitish Dagon. 
His name being so similar to Jonah it is not impossible that the two 
are connected. 



6o J9NAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 

We now come to the more attractive figure of the Grecian Apollo- 
Leto, his mother, could find no place to rest in her hour of travail 
until she came to the little stony island of Delos. Fearing lest her 
godly son should despise his sterile birthplace, she made a solemn 
covenant with the people, that here should be his sanctuary forever, 
that here his worshipers coming from all lands to his festival should 
bring inexhaustible wealth of gold and treasure. When Eleithyia,the 
goddess of birth, drew near, Leto cast her arms around a tall palm tree 
as she reclined on the bank of the river Cynthus, and the babe leaped 
into life and light. The goddesses bathed him in pure water, wrapped 
him in a glistening robe, placed, a golden band around his body and 
touched his lips with the drink and food of the immortals. He was 
endowed at once with irresistible strength, his swaddling bands fell off 
like flax, and he immediately began his long journeys. His golden 
hair no razor should ever touch. From land to land he travelled de- 
li ghted with the beautiful sights of grove-clad hills, crystal cascades 
and graceful rivers winding to the sea. When only four days old he 
slew the dragon which chased his mother in her wanderings to Delos. 
Then he secured a body of priests and servants for his Delphian sanc- 
tuary ; and this is the portion of the myth which especially bears upon 
the present discussion. A ship of Crete was sailing with merchandise 
to Pylos.. Apollo leaped into the sea in the guise of a dolphin and 
urged the vessel through the waters, while the sailors sat terror stricken 
on the deck. As they entered the Crisaian gulf a strong zephyr carried 
them eastward till the ship was lifted high on the sands. Then Apollo 
sped from the vessel like a star, while sparks of light darted from his 
body to heaven, and hastening to his sanctuary he kindled the flames 
upon the altar. Hurrying back with the rapidity of thought he told 
the seamen that never more might they hope to see their native shores, 
their wives and children, but that hereafter they should guard the 
shrine of Apollo. So he led them to Pytho, filling the air meantime 
with heavenly melodies. "How shall we live," they say, "in such a 



JONAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 6l 

barren land as this ?" "Avoid falsehood in word," he replies, "and 
violence in deed, and ye shall receive all that heart may desire." 

It is evident that behind all these tales there is a common background, 
the key to one is the key to all. Now every dinger to the reality of 
Jonah's gastric sojourn is ready to pronounce the others mythical, and 
likewise those persons who have grown up under the influence of any 
one of the others, would render the like judgment upon Jonah. Let 
us give them all a fair consideration and ask what do they mean ? 
How did the stories ever come to be told ? Joppa, where Jonah is said 
to have gone to sea, has the Mediterranean upon its west. The sun 
therefore would always set in the water and rise the next morning on 
the land. Remembering that primitive man knew nothing of the form 
of the earth, nothing of its axial revolution, possessed, in fact, none of 
the scientific data necessary for a proper explanation of the phenome- 
non, and moreover habituated to one method of thought, that of per- 
sonification, how would he account for the sun's passing from the 
western waters to the eastern land? "Old Sol," he would say, "sinks 
into the sea and is swallowed by a great fish every night and vomited 
up safe and sound on dry land in the morning." The nucleus once 
started would proceed to continued elaboration. In time the nature 
origin would be forgotten and the events become attached to national 
heroes. There is no reason for doubting the reality of the historical 
Jonah ; he has simply been subjected to a layer of solar mythology. How 
often do the turbulent waves sink to rest as the sun goes down beneath 
the water ! Does not Jonah's plunge quell the storm ? In the prayer 
which Jonah makes while submerged, he confuses the belly of the fish 
with hell and the interior of the earth ; "out of the belly of hell, cried 
I," and again, "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains ; the 
earth with her bars was about me forever." Now this is not true at 
all according to the story, but its presence here is understood, when 
we know that the sun's setting, or his wintry sojourn in the south, is 
often personified as the descent into hell of a sun god, and that hell 
was consequently located in the west. Thus we read in the twenty- 



62 JONAH AND HIS COLLEAGUES. 

fourth book of Homer's Odyssey, where Cyllenius conducts the 
shades of the suitors to Pluto's nether regions : 

And now they reach'd the earth's remotest ends, 
And. now the gates where evening Sol descends ', 
And rest at last where souls unbodied dwell 
In ever flowing meads of asphodel. 

It is worthy of notice that the mystic number three has asserted its 
power and determined how long our hero should remain in his dark 
confinement. It answers for the three watches of the night, evening, 
midnight and morning. The casting of lots to see for whose sake the 
evil was upon them illustrates weJl that childlike conception of nature's 
forces, which lead primitive man to explain all their actions as designed 
for the weal or woe of individuals. Of all the barks that sailed the sea 
that day each crew would think that the tempest was sent especially 
for its harm. 

The myth of the Phoenician Heracles arising likewise upon the east- 
ern shore of the Mediterranean sea has taken the same essential form, 
like causes producing like effects. The others growing up under dif- 
ferent circumstances show a corresponding variation. Pradyumna 
took his ride in the fish protected by a chest, which furnishes an easy 
transition to the case of Osiris who was simply thrown into the Nile 
inclosed in the box. Oannes was conceived to be half fish, half man, 
a double being capable of living in the water by night and on land 
by day. Apollo possessed the power of complete transformation into 
a dolphin. His birth is a beautiful picture of a sunrise. The babe 
leaping into life, the goddesses bathing him in crystal water, their 
wrapping him in a shining robe, placing a golden band around his 
body, and touching his lips with the dew of morning, his immediate 
increase of strength, his Samsonian hair, his far shooting journeys, his 
slaying the dragon, his submarine swim, the light flashing from his 
body, — all these show him to be a model sun god. 

The North American Indians have a legend that they were guided to 
their present home by a wonderful man or fish, which kept close to the 



THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 6$ 

boat until it reached the shore. Sigfried, the name under which Sigurd 
appears in the Nibelungen Lied, is also represented as pushing a ship 
through the sea. It is this close connection with the water that 
attaches to sun gods the function of supervising navigation. The am- 
phibious character of the sun causes him to assume the form of a frog, 
as well as that of a fish. Among many such myths is that of the Ger- 
mans where a prince worries his servant, Trusty Henry, very much by 
jumping into the water at night transformed into a horrid green 
croaker. But in the morning he comes out again once more a man and 
sets merrily forth with his bride upon a journey. 

Jonah can no longer be looked upon as a miraculous personage, for he 
has too many associates. When comparative study brings out a crowd 
of marine heroes the marvelousness of any one fades away. Ignorance 
cannot hide in its cavern of the miracle, for science has run in a wire 
and attached an incandescent globe. The account of Jonah has ceased 
to be a fish story and has taken its legitimate station among the intel- 
ligent myths of the sun. Shake hands ye skeptics and believers ; you 
were both right and both wrong. 

THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 

Man is the most conceited of all animals. Because he finds himself 
at the top of the animal kingdom he looks down with disdain upon the 
rest of creation. Whenever impressed with his own weakness and sin- 
fulness he says : "it was not always so ; I have had a fall. Once I was 
perfect. I am descended from the gods. In the 'golden age' I was 
innocent. Ah, those happy days of old ! How sad, how sad, that they 
should have changed ! " 

In the mythology of Mexico we read, "that during the reign ofQuetz- 
alcoatl, god of the air, the earth teemed with fruits and flowers with- 
out the pains of culture. An ear of corn was as much as a single man 
could carry. The cotton as it grew took of its own accord the rich dyes 
of human art. The air was filled with intoxicating perfumes and the 



64 THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 

sweet melody of birds." Alas, why could it not have continued so for- 
ever ? 

The Chaldeans tell about the war between the gods and the fall of 
man. Hesiod speaks for the Greeks and relates how men at first were 
"a golden race, living as gods a life void of care, labor or trouble." 
But there came a fall, caused by female curiosity. Pandora, the first 
women created, received a vase, which, by divine command, was to 
remain closed ; but she opened it, and sorrow, trouble, and sickness 
escaped into the world. Hope alone remained. For the Romans, 
Ovid draws a picture of the "golden age, when man no rule but 
uncorrupted reason knew," followed by a "silver age, when good Saturn 
banished from above was driven to Hell, and the world was left under 
Jove." Then came a "brazen age," when men were "a warlike off- 
spring, prompt to bloody rage," and finally an "iron age, when Truth, 
Modesty, and Shame the world forsook." 

And so we might go on ransacking the mythological garrets of the 
world and continue to find variants of this same old legend. The 
studies of modern times have set our minds at ease, however, as to the 
character of all these stories. Now, we know, that man's develop- 
ment has always been a progressive one, that the farther back we go, 
the lower we find his condition, that his movement has not been a 
descent from, but an ascent towards the gods. Such is the verdict of 
history, such the indications of mythology, such the evidence of rock 
remains. Retrogressive periods have occasionally occurred, but they 
are only the sinking of the wave, which soon rises to a higher crest 
than before. 

No scholarly mind at the present time interprets the story of the 
Garden of Eden literally ; only upon the confiding faith of the child in 
thought do the words fall as actually true. To adult intellect there 
clings a curiosity to know what the legend really means. When the 
children have gone out to play, the old folks talk it over and make 
their guesses. 



THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 65 

Earlier than the worship of the sun and other heavenly bodies there 
existed in the mind of primitive man a wide spread and profound rev- 
erence for the mystery of reproduction. Nothing filled his soul with 
more devout superstition than the birth of a human being. It was the 
miracle of miracles ! He even built theories of the creation of the 
universe upon the same plan. All the accompaniments of this won- 
derful phenomenon grew to be the objects of his worship, and numerous 
images, symbols, and sayings relating thereto, have come down to us 
—representations of thought and feeling from so remote a period oi 
time that we can scarcely catch their meaning. 

Thirteen per cent of the population of the world are devotees of 
Vishnu and Siva, Hindu deities, representing the yoni or womb, and 
the phallus, respectively. The symbolism is not merely left to be 
arrived at by a comparison of ancient emblems, but is explained by 
living Brahmins. At Thebes in Egypt the principal triad of gods con- 
sisted of Amon, Nut, and Chonsu, the father, mother and offspring, 
and likewise at Abydos were Osiris, Isis,and Horus. All these were 
acknowledged sun-gods and we can see the phallic worship reaching 
down and overlapping the solar religion in such hymns as, "O let us 
give glory to the babe, who is brought forth daily !" The short scep- 
ter and the ring held by some Assyrian gods are emblems of the phal- 
lus and the yoni. The scepter carried by every king indicative of his 
power, and the ring used to this day as a marriage pledge, are both 
relics of this most ancient mythology. On the rock tablet of Pterium, 
Mylitta, "the child bearer" is represented as holding a sword piercing 
a ring. But it is unnecessary to give further instances. Sun worship 
condemned the phallic worship as obscene and immoral, and the sym- 
bols were applied to the reproductive power of the sun, an inevitable 
transition, the result of personifying the heavenly bodies, and hence 
giving them in a generous degree the mysterious powers before wor- 
shiped as possessed by man himself. We have already come across 
a few cases in the study of Samson, Sigurd and Heracles. The pillars 
of Samson and Hercules are emblems of the phallus ; the Ring of 



66 THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 

Andvari and the girdle of Hippolyte the queen of the Amazons, are 
emblems of the yoni. In the fourteenth book of the Iliad, Homer 
relates how Juno sets off her charms with the magic girdle of Venus and 
with the aid of Somnus, the god of sleep, calms Jupiter to slumber in 
her embraces. The golden apples of the garden of Hesperides, a wed- 
ding present from Ge (earth) to Hera, wife of Zeus, plainly have to do 
with reproduction, and suggest at once the fruit which our mythic 
parents ate in the Garden of Eden. 

The legend of man's primordial bliss in the "garden of delight" is 
not confined to the Bible ; it is widely diffused throughout Eastern 
mythology. In the British musem is a cylinder round which is coiled 
a serpent, while seated beneath on opposite sides a woman and a man 
in Babylonian headdress pluck fruit from its branches. The belief in a 
Paradise hidden beneath the earth was early expressed in Egypt. Two 
sacred trees stood in the regions of Amentu, as it was called, and from 
one of these Nut the sky goddess, gives the "water oflife" to thirsty 
bird-like souls. In India "two trees of desire" of good and evil respec- 
tively, stand on the summit of Mount Meru, where Kuvera, the god of 
riches, has his northern paradise. These trees were ambrosial, that is 
their fruit blessed the eaters with immortal life. They were sacred to 
the goddess of love. In Persia the paradise of the good king Yima, of 
the golden age, stood in our old Aryan home near the Hindoo Koosh 
Mountains, and here it was that the serpent slew the king. According 
to other Median legends the same serpent seduced the first human 
couple to eat fruits, which act deprived them of their original happi- 
ness. 

To understand the meaning of this beautiful garden of delight so uni- 
versally found in the traditions of many peoples we must appeal to 
phallic as well as sun mythology ; it combines the symbolism of both. 
All these bright eastern paradises are glimpses of sunrise and spring as 
contrasted with dark Sheol or Hell, which was located in the west, 
and represents night and winter. Thus we read that the sun is red at 
dawn, because it reflects the roses of Eden, and red at sunset, because 



THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 67 

it reflects the fires of Hell. Most sun-gods descend into Hell by going 
beneath the sea or the ground and remain three days, which represents 
the three watches of the night, evening, midnight, and morning, or the 
three months of winter. Thus Hercules, Aeneas, Ulysses, Jonah, 
Buddha, Christ, all have this myth attached to them. The "tree of 
life" in the Garden ot Eden symbolizes the phallus and the serpent 
wound about it, the yoni. The sacred stream flowing from the tree is 
"the water of life," the origin of fertility. In India it flows from the 
head of Siva, the phallic god, and the sacred tree is always near or in 
a fountain or lake of ambrosia. The forbidden fruit, which grew upon 
"the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" is the act of coition ; 
which makes perfectly transparent the meaning of such subsequent 
passages as, "And Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and 
bore Cain." The same meaning of the word is found in Luke, where 
Mary asks the angel Gabriel how she shall bring forth a son, seeing 
she knows not a man. The curse pronounced upon the woman still 
further clears up the mystery : "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and 
thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire 
shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee." And upon the 
man was placed the somewhat satirical doom of eating the same fruit 
during all his days and with sweating brow to wrench from the stub- 
born earth a support for his rapidly increasing family. The myth is thus 
seen to embody a crude effort of primitive man to explain the pains of 
travail and the necessity of working for a living. There is an element 
of truth in both ; in the former case, it is the temptation of pleasure 
which leads to the sorrow ; and in the latter, it is the multiplication of 
individuals which necessitates the tilling of the soil. 

It is interesting to notice that the symbols found in the Garden of 
Eden are strikingly like those used in the celebrated Eleusinian Myster- 
ies of the Greeks, the phallus, the egg } and the serpent. Both picture 
that ancient awe, amounting to the most profound worship, which is 
awakened in the soul of man by the unexplainable. The study of biol- 
ogy has put the phenomena of reproduction much more within our 



68 THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 

grasp than is generally imagined by people at large. The worship of 
this mystery has at least largely died out. But the symbolism remains. 
We still sing of "the water of life that is flowing, freely flowing," and 
we send our boys to college "to eat of the tree of knowledge," that they 
may "be wise as serpents," and we blame Adam and Eve for sins of 
our own, and lay everything upon the back of that patient, forbearing 
old arch serpent, the Devil. 

One can hardly suppress a smile, when he listens to a rural clergy- 
man instructing his submissive flock, that man has tumbled from a 
state of holiness by committing the act which alone we have to thank 
for our existence. Given to our first parents a will power strong enough 
to have resisted the wiles of that snake, and the preacher would not be 
preaching and the congregation would not be sleeping, for there would 
be but two people in the world. If ethics must continue to be taught 
through the medium of mythological stories, let the deductions from 
this one be after the following manner. Marriage is the tree in the 
midst of the Garden of Eden. When young people take upon them- 
selves this solemn contract they first begin to know their inmost natures. 
It is indeed a tree of knowledge . Pleasures and pains, joys and sorrows 
are the effects of eating its fruits. Suffering to the wife and toil to the 
husband are mixed with the delights of bringing up children. The 
world is filled with men and women who have fallen by an intemperate 
indulgence of Eden's fruit. It is not strange that our forefathers attrib- 
uted all evil to this cause. We understand social science better than 
they did. We know that there are evils which can not be traced to 
licentiousness. There are evjls of drink, evils of eating, of bad ven- 
tilation, of poor drainage, of dishonesty, of carelessness, and a thousand 
causes not included in this little scheme of man's downfall. Still it is 
correct as far as it goes, and it goes a great way. 



NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 69 

NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 
The writers of the Old Testament would have us conclude, that the 
Hebrew Jehovah was a terrible bungler in the matter of creation and 
government. Especially did he make botch-work of his last job, man, 
a creature after his own image. There was no one to interfere with 
his arrangements; he fixed matters to suit himself, and when it was 
all done, he looked it over and pronounced it "very good." Man was 
placed amid most' delightful surroundings ; in a beautiful garden— two 
individuals, just enough to be supremely happy. But how inexcusably 
ignorant Jehovah was of the nature of this pair ! He ought never to 
have placed that tree right in the center of the garden — the most con- 
spicuous place— loaded it with such tempting fruit, and then forbidden 
his wards to taste it. Anybody would have known better than that. 
And how careless it was of him, not to have investigated the character 
of that serpent, before allowing him to wriggle at large in the garden ! 
If he had made the first snakes upon the plan adopted later, not pos- 
sessed of the power of speech, all would have come out according to 
expectations. But that subtle tongue did the business. The fruit was 
eaten; and Jehovah announced to his associates: "Behold the man 
has become as one of us, to know good and evil ;" and "lest he should 
put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life," which had been 
carelessly allowed to grow right in the same garden, "and eat and live 
forever," there was no alternative but to banish him forever from Eden. 
There arose another difficulty ; this unruly man might steal back again 
and get some fruit on the sly from that tree of everlasting vitality. 
This was carefully guarded against by placing "at the east end of Eden 
Cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the 
way of the tree of life." Thus it appears that Jehovah feared that a 
race of beings, half god, half man, would spring up on the earth, pos- 
sessed of the knowledge of good and evil, and of life eternal, which 
would seriously dispute his supreme power. After a lapse of years, 
when men had multiplied and become very wicked upon the earth, 
Jehovah is once more alarmed, because of the waywardness of his own 



70 NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 

boys ; for "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were 
fair ; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And there were 
giants in the earth in those days;" and, as the result of these marriages 
of celestials with terrestrials, there were born mighty men and men of 
renown. Once more a dangerous and threatening opposition was 
looming up on the earth, and as "every imagination of the thoughts of 
man's heart was only evil continually, it repented the Lord that he had 
made him," and he formed a desperate resolve to drown out the whole 
detested race. But there was one comlorting man among the rowdy 
mob ; Noah must be saved. He floats tranquilly over the submerged 
valleys, plains and mountain peaks, he and his immediate family, 
together with a pair of every living thing— nest eggs for a new crea- 
tion — while beneath him writhe and struggle the dying myriads of 
Jehovah's creative mistakes. With a touch of regret for his rash 
destruction of life and property and with a feeling of obligation 
to Noah for his obedience and faithfulness, he promised never to drown 
the world again, and sealed his covenant with the rain bow. But man 
renewed at once his habit of sinning. Noah himself got drunk. The 
world grew worse and worse, Jehovah's original faulty creation was 
breeding dishonor to his name. The snake in the grass, which he had 
overlooked in Eden, was grown to be a mighty power in the world, 
threatening his supremacy. He was pledged against floods. He was 
filled with a thirst for revenge. What could be done? At last he hit 
upon a plan. He would send his only son down to earth in the form of 
man and let the wicked creatures kill him. That would satisfy his own 
desire for blood. And all who should believe from his wonderful 
works that this apparent man was a god, should be forgiven and come 
to his courts, when they died ; while all those who thought otherwise, 
should be given over to his adversary, Satan. We are led to inquire 
what had become of the disobedient sons of God, who admired earth's 
daughters so much in early days? He seems to have but one Son 
left at this late stage of history. Probably they were all drowned in 
the Deluge along with their too ambitious wives. 



NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 7 I 

It would be out of place to apologize for the apparently trifling 
spirit in which the above paragraph is written ; for from the standpoint 
of literality nothing but amusement can be afforded by a review of 
this highly mythical theory. Looked upon as mythology it becomes 
reasonable, interesting, and worthy of study, but as fact — well, it is 
curious what people will believe, when they have imbibed it with their 
mother's milk, and breathed it all their lifetime ! 

Legends of a universal flood are not so common in the mythologies 
of the world as those of the golden age, but they may be found in the 
literature of many countries. The Greeks believed in a Deluge but 
thought it to have been confined to Phoenicia. In Egypt there is no 
clear flood story, for the inundations of the Nile are a blessing, not a 
curse ; still we read of Osiris floating in his coffin on the sea, a picture 
which bears a general resemblance to Noah in his ark. The ancient 
dark race of Chaldea seems to have possessed the myth, for the ship of 
Ea (god of the sea,) is mentioned on Accadian tablets. The Dravid- 
ians in India had a similar tradition, Manu, the original man, being 
towed by the great fish-god, Vishnu, to the mountain of the north, 
where, as the flood subsided, the boat was stranded. Among the Per- 
sians, Yima's garden, a square enclosure with a wall, was secure when 
all else perished in winter, and a bird, sent from heaven, announced 
safety to the righteous preserved therein. This narrative is probably 
as old as the Jehovistic account. Berosus gives the Assyrian legend, 
which is almost an exact parallel of the Biblical story. These coinci- 
dences point plainly to a common origin for the two. It is probable 
that the Israelites imbibed the myth during the captivity in Babylon. 
A long continued abode in the midst of that great nation of wealth and 
culture instilled much into the Hebrew nature which is traceable in 
their writings. 

The story of the Deluge is a natural outgrowth of the inundations of 
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The snows and rains of winter pro- 
duce an annual flooding of the plains. As the people, from generation 
to generation, told of the most destructive one known to them, there 



72 NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 

would inevitably grow up a legend of a great flood, long ago, that 
eclipsed them all. And when the myth of the sun god, floating in his 
boat upon the sea, a conception universally spread over the world, be- 
came blended with the local tradition, we would have the story very 
nearly in its present form. It only remains for time to fit it into the 
Hebrew theory of Jehovah and harmonize it as much as possible with 
the other myths. It is because of this patch-work — myths developing 
at different ages and in various localities and then being agglutinated— 
that a rapid glance over the complete scheme exhibits such discrepan- 
cies and absurdities. 

The name of the hero belongs to the solar part of the legend. 
"Noah" means "rest," and in his ark he pictures the winter's sun 
resting after a year's labor. The Assyrian tablets give Hasisadra as 
the name of the man who was saved, which is more likely to corres- 
spond with some earthly hero. The people of the plains looked for 
the receding of the waters as the harbinger of a new summer with its 
warmth and harvests. "Old Sol," they said, "has gone to rest in his 
ark, but after a while he will come forth again and renew life upon the 
earth." The one hundred aud fifty days before the ark touched land 
represents the duration of the cold, wet season. A pair of every living 
thing, saved with him, is a very poetic way of explaining the sun's 
power to call forth life once more in the spring. The birds come ear- 
liest after winter's cold, flying ahead as pioneers to see if yet they may 
build their nests and sing their love songs. How prettily this experi- 
ence of every year appears in the myth as the sending out from the ark 
of the raven and the dove. In the account of Deucalion's flood, by 
Pindar, the survivors are warned by the wolves of the approaching 
catastrophe, and in another Greek legend the nymphs are told by the 
cries of the cranes. What can more plainly indicate the coming of 
winter than the actions of animals and the flight of birds ? The ark 
was made of gopher wood, an evergreen ; appropriate, indeed ! It 
rests finally upon the "holy mountain" of the north, Ararat, close by 



NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 73 

the mythic Eden. Thus the Hebrews, like other peoples locate these 
two sacred places, the mountain and the garden, near each other. 

It looks as though two fathers of man were competing for that honor 
in Babylon, Adam and Noah, and that the deluge came to be a recon- 
ciliation of conflicting claims. Let the race be entirely drowned and 
both may rest quiet in their fatherhood. 

Many solar attributes are given to Noah besides that of navigation ; 
he is a civilizer, encourages agriculture and the culture of the vine. 
Civil order and protection of life begin with him. He makes wine and 
imbibes too much himself. In a fit of intoxication he exposes his 
nakedness and is seen by Ham, the black son, and afterward covered 
by the more modest Shem and Japheth. Here we see a picture of 
sunset, black night gazing upon the helpless form of the sun, while it 
is covered over by the mantle of darkness. 

No dependence can be placed upon the asserted ages of Noah and 
his line of ancestors. In such mythical literature we should as readily 
expect to find the heroes living nine thousand years as nine hundred. 
But, inasmuch as it is evident that the sun and the year have much to 
do with this legend, the following are offered simply as suggestions. 
If we change the unit from years to days, the age, three hundred and 
fifty, which Noah lived after the flood corresponds pretty nearly to the 
actual age of one sun, and becomes reasonable when we think of him 
as a solar character. His total age of nine hundred and fifty becomes 
seventy-nine, by changing the unit from years to months, which is also 
reasonable, considering him as an actual man. Applying this manipu- 
lation to Noah's ancestors from Adam down causes them all to become 
human beings except Enoch, "who walked with God" (in the sky) "and 
was not, for God took him," at the suggestive age of three hundred 
and sixty-five. No one but a genealogical crank, blinded by the super- 
stitions of his cradlehood, would imagine for a moment that in a line 
of ten sons x eight of them should live nine hundred years each, one 
seven hundred and seventy-seven, and another three hundred and 
sixty-five. It takes a long experience in a country Sunday school to 



74 NOAH AND THE DELUGE. 

make one's credulity elastic enough to stretch around such a whopper 
as that. 

The Greeks personified the rainbow as a beautiful angel of the gods, 
Iris by name. Her office was to cut the thread that detained the soul 
in the body of those that were expiring. She is represented with her 
wings beautifully painted in variegated colors, sitting behind Hera, the 
jealous wife of Zeus ready to speed to earth on errands. She it was 
that supplied the clouds with water when the Olympian Zeus determined 
to deluge the world. The Hebrew myth explains the rainbow as a 
token of the pledge given to Noah, that Jehovah would never drown 
the world again. It was to be a gentle reminder to the Hebrew god, 
set by himself; "when I bring a cloud over the earth," he says, "the 
bow shall be seen, and I will remember my covenant." 

Such are the mythical explanations of the rainbow ; poetical indeed, 
but how wide of scientific truth ! When light falls upon drops of water, 
it is refracted and reflected within the drops and thrown down to the 
eye. The result of the refraction is to separate the white light into its 
component colors, which coming at slightly different angles produces 
the effect so familiar to all. It matters not whether it be in the mist 
of Minnehaha or the spray from the hose of a fire engine, whether it 
be in 1890 or in the Glacial Epoch, sunlight shining on falling drops of 
water makes a rainbow, provided there be an eye to receive it. As 
this was not understood in the myth building age, we can not blame 
our forefathers for going astray. But what shall we think of people of 
the present day, who hold to the poetry through a sense of duty? "It 
is necessary to think foolishly," they say, "in order to be saved." 

But let us take a closer look at that covenant : "While the earth 
remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and 
winter, and day and night shall not cease." Here we have the key to 
the myth ! These great natural phenomena are speaking out through 
the story. Let us not be dull and stupid ! Let us not take for prose 
the poetry of the spheres ! Let us catch the strain ! It is the melody 
of the solar year ! 



GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 75 

GAUTAMA BUDDHA, AND JESUS CHRIST. 

A PARALLEL. 

Every great civilization brings forth its religion, its book and its 
man. China has its Confucius, Persia its Zoroaster, Greece its Socrates, 
Rome its Marcus Aurelius, Mexico its Quetzal coatl, Arabia its Moham- 
med, India its Buddha and Palestine its Jesus. Each is a noble charac- 
ter* a devout teacher, a martyr for the cause of humanity. Each pro- 
foundly influences the ethical precepts of his country. Each is perse- 
cuted during life and is rapidly overladen with marvel tales after death. 
Each is believed by his followers to be the world's great and only 
prophet, and by many to be a god. To his devotees each seems iso- 
lated, grand and exalted above all men. From cradle to tomb they 
speak his name with peculiar awe. Only the cold and skeptical mind, 
able to study the religions of the world with an unbiased judgment, 
succeeds in piercing this enshrouding birth-cloud. To him these men 
form a class of religious philosophers. They appear alike in general 
characteristics and differ only in such traits as the ages and circum- 
stances, under which they developed, would necessitate. He sees in 
each a historical nucleus of reality covered over with accretions of 
mythology accumulated during succeeding years. 

It is the object of this essay, to bring into juxtaposition, possibly the 
two most remarkable of these Saviors of the World. 

Twenty three hundred and sixty-seven years ago, according to Max 
Muller, honored and surrounded by his disciples, at a ripe old age, 
died Gautama Buddha. He was born at the foot of the Nepaul moun- 
tains, north of Oude, and his life and teachings so stirred the stream 
of religious thought in India, that it spread over the continent of Asia 
thoroughly tinctured with his personality. Nearly one third of the ' 
entire human race have been brought under its sway. 

About four hundred aud seventy seven years later there appeared in 
Galilee another strikingly similar man. The power of his individuality 
went westward with "the course of empire," and conquered Europe 



76 GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 

and America. Less in numbers, but more promising in character, 
Christendom can not be admitted inferior to the empire of Buddha. 

Of these two men little is really known. The historical nucleus is 
minute indeed. Through the roseate clouds of mythology we can 
catch a glimpse of actual men, gentle and melancholy of mind, given 
to meditation, filled with intense sympathy for humanity, modestly but 
intensely devoting their lives to the bettering of man's condition. This 
they would do both by precept and practice. They teach a be*tter 
philosophy of life than the old, and act it out in their own career. The 
one seeks to reform Brahminism, the other Judaism. The sick, the 
old, and the dead, could not be divorced from their sensitive natures, 
and the vanities of time dissolve before the immensities of eternity. 

Gautama was the son of a king, but he left his palace, his sleeping 
wife and child, for the yellow garb, the shaven head, and the begging 
bowl of the hermit. Jesus was lowly of birth, but was pressed by the 
Jews to be their King. He too refused, " for his kingdom was not of 
this world." Both are thus characterized by a great renunciation, 
power and position cast aside for the love of man. 

Gautama at first sought peace by weaning himself from the world, 
but after long and vain effort he suddenly threw aside the ambition of 
self perfection, and boldly proclaimed the duty of devoting life to the 
comfort and help of all who sorrow and sin. He made no destinction 
of caste or race, of age or sex, of good or evil life. This was his mes- 
sage to the world. Not Nirvana, the annihilation of all carnel desires, 
that was Brahman ; not Kurmen, the physical punishment of actions by 
their consequences, that was also older in origin. But Charity, that 
love which includes all the world. Sorrow was his theme; its cause, 
its cure, the way of its escape. I fancy I hear some good old Christian 
mother say, "why that is the teaching of Jesus!" True, true indeed ! 
They saw the same evils, felt the same love for man, and taught the 
same "golden rule." 

The na^mes, appellations, and expressions applied to the prophet of 
the East hover also about his prototype of the West. His proper name 



GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 77 

was probably Siddartha, He was of the Sakyan family and Gautama 
clan. But his devotees call him "Lord Buddha," that is "the enlight- 
ened one," the word Buddha being an appelative similar to Christ, 
"the anointed one." He is also spoken of as Tathagata, "he who 
should come," for the people of India were also looking for a prophe- 
sied Savior. "The Light of the World," the "Lion of the Tribe of 
Sakya" surely have a familiar ring to the Christian ear. "Heaven and 
earth shall pass away, but my word shall not fail," his Kingdom of 
Righteousness, his "Way of Life," his "Spiritual Kingdom," are 
expressions which drop continually from the lips of the orthodox 
Christian. And when we read, that his opponents are "blind leaders 
of the blind," that his law is a "precious pearl," that he targht in par- 
ables one of which was about a sower of seed, that he commanded his 
disciples to go out into the world an^j, preach the gospel, that a rich 
young man came to him seeking salvation and was told to go sell all 
he had and give to the poor, that he tenderly received a little child which 
his disciples would drive away, that he taught to overcome evil with 
good, that he had a triumphal entry when countless multitudes spread 
their priceless garments in the way for him to walk upon, that by his 
birth came "peace and rest to all flesh," and that at his death, all those 
who witnessed it, sweat great drops of blood from every pore ; we 
begin to realize that the prophet of Galilee was not the original fount 
from which flowed all the wisdom and legends of the new Testament. 
About the dim realities of these two blessed men time has wrapped 
the brilliant vestments of mythology. That stock of solar personifica- 
tions common to all nations, and wont to gather about the characters 
of ancient heroes, could not well refrain from embracing two such per- 
sonages as Gautama and Jesus. Its presence by no means disproves 
their actual historic existence, but rather confirms it. As mists and 
fogs give evidence of an enclosed iceberg, so do myths and legends 
breathe of a hidden man, and in both cases it is the influence of the sun 
that causes the clouding. In the sacred books of Buddha he is repre- 
sented as sitting in Heaven above and expressing a wish to be born 



78 GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 

once more as a god-man, an incarnation of Vishnu, the supreme God 
of the Hindus, to teach fallen man the way of life. With inconsistent 
disregard of his actual father, King Suddhodana, he is pictured as mirac- 
ulously entering the right side of his Virgin Mother, Queen Maya, 
heralded by the songs of angels and a great light. Like Apollo he is born 
beneath a stately tree. Four angel kings of the world come to worship 
him, and the aged saint, Asita, pronounces him a future Buddha. The 
same mythic atmosphere surrounds the birth of Jesus. We are told 
that in the beginning he was with God and was God, and that he was 
made flesh and dwelt among us. Disregarding Joseph his natural 
father, the legends tell of a miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, 
foretold by the angel Gabriel. His birth is heralded by a star in the 
East and a multitude of the heavenly host praising god. The babe 
appears in a manger, and the devout old man Simeon, waiting for the 
consolation of Israel, pronounces it the Lord's Christ. It takes no great 
sweep of intellect to see that these two pictures are painted with the 
same colors. Were such births, resulting from the fathership of gods 
and mothership of earthly virgins, rare in mythology, we might be 
excused in expressing wonder at these stories ; but since such are the 
rule instead of the exception, we are on the lookout for deo-virgo gen- 
eration. All the Greek gods, and especially the supreme father Zeus, 
were prolific in their earthly born children. Romulus and Remus were 
the offspring of Mars and a vestal virgin. The Hebrew "Sons of God" 
married the "daughters of men" and brought forth "mighty men of 
old." In short half the heroes of mythology are celestially sired. This 
is a matter of necessity occasioned by the character of the personages. 
When solar powers are given to human beings, the double product 
requires a double parentage. How else could Hercules and Apollo be 
both human and divine ? Man first builds his hero by confusing nature 
personifications with real men ; then explains his marvel by giving him 
a god for a father and a virgin for a mother. 

In the joyous demonstrations of nature, which are said to have accom- 
panied these two births, we may see a picture of sun-rise and spring- 



GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 79 

time, the birth of the day and of the year. The c 'star in the east," 
seen by the shepherds, and dreamed of by Queen Maya, is the planet 
Mercury heralding the approaching sun. The four angels which come 
to worship the infant Buddha, are the angel of the North, of the East, 
South, and West, the regents of the earth. The gladness and rejoicing 
which filled heaven and earth is in perfect keeping with the exultation 
attendant upon morning and spring. 

Gautama is wrapped like any other child in swaddling clothes, but in 
early years he astonishes his teachers with his profound knowledge. 
So Mary and Joseph journeying thoughtlessly away from Jerusalem and 
leaving their child, upon searching find him in the temple confounding 
the doctors with his wisdom. Buddha is tempted in the desert by 
Mara, the Indian devil, but rejects his offers of food and universal mon- 
archy on earth. Christ also, after forty days of fasting in the wilder- 
ness, refuses to turn stone into bread at the instigation of Satan, and 
rejects the worldly power so deftly proffered. Both these are plainly 
figurative versions of the mental struggles which the men passed through 
in their renunciation of the vanities of the world. The old myth of the 
sun's conflict with the powers of darkness and cold during the lenten 
season of winter, and his victory at Easter, has been woven into the 
soul experiences of Jesus and Gautama, and the result is a word encoun- 
ter with the Prince of Superstitions. 

Buddha slays a dragon, and Christ casts out legions of devils. Both 
walk with dry feet upon the water. Both know the thoughts of their 
disciples before they are uttered. Both feed them miraculously with 
unexpected food. Both were said to baptize with water and with fire. 
Both ascend to Heaven and descend to Hell. Women minister to them 
and anoint them. Both carry the wounded lamb in their arms, restore 
sight to the blind and heal by a touch of their garment. Both are 
believed to have appeared again after death. Both are pictured with a 
glory, that symbol of the sun, about their head. The prints of their 
sacred feet are still adored. The heavenly Brahman, Sakra, runs before 
the infant Buddha, crying, "my friends prepare the way ; clear the road !" 



8o GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 

John was a voice crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way 
of the Lord!" Jesus is seen transfigured upon a mountain, shining 
bright, with Moses and Elijah. The Indian picture of Siva flanked 
by Brahma and Vishnu, standing on Mount Kailasa, furnishes an 
exact parallel ; and as Buddha is an incarnation of Vishnu his con- 
nection with the scene is apparent. Once he retreated to Mount Pan- 
dava and there sat beneath a tree, his body shining like a golden image, 
and again it was said of him, "he shone as the sun in his early strength." 
Here is a mass of solar mythology equally attached to Gautama and 
Jesus, the significance of which can not be mistaken. Slaying of 
dragons and overcoming evil spirits, walking on the sea, stilling of 
tempests, bringing forth of food in abundance, changing the water of 
the clouds into the juice of the vine, baptisms of fire and water, ascents 
into the heavens and descents into the infernal regions, the healing of 
the nations, resurrections from the tomb after three days sojourn, 
shining transfigurations upon the mountains — these are the standard 
characteristics of solar heroes. Is it necessary to remind the reader, 
that the sun's conflict with cold and darkness during the night and winter 
is always represented by a hero slaying a dragon or conquering evil 
spirits? That the sun crosses rivers, lakes and seas dryshod both in fact 
and in mythology ? That he raises and stills the tempests ? That his prin- 
ciple function is to bring forth food from the earth ? That he changes 
water into a thousand nectarine juices ? That he pours down both rain 
and heat, water and fire, upon man ? That every morning he ascends 
into the heavens, and every evening he descends, as was supposed of 
old, into the regions of darkness? That he has always been hymned 
as the "world's great healer?" That resurrection from the dead after 
three days, pictures the sun's return to life after his three month's death 
in winter? That shining transfigurations upon mountains are figura- 
tive representations of the rising or setting sun as he passes the hori- 
zon ? Oh, how many a poor soul has struggled to believe these won- 
derful tales without the key that makes them plain ! Terrified with the 
idea, so cruelly and persistently forced upon her, that refusal to assent 



GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 8l 

means eternal damnation, how many a timid girl has sunk into a, tur- 
moil of confusion and yielded! Said the words, "J believe," and 
thought the thought, "I do not understand." Of all tyranny this is the 
worst, to force the tongue to say, what the mind does not think. Sla- 
very of the body is inhuman, but slavery of the mind is fiendish ! 

The continual repetition in the legends of both Jesus and Gautama 
of the numbers seven and twelve, the days of the week and months of 
the year, is sufficient to put any careful reader on the alert for other 
symptoms of nature personification. Taking all things into considera- 
tion, we are forced to the conclusion that the literary pictures of Bud- 
dha and Christ, which are now within reach, are far more mythical than 
real. 

A comparison of any other two of the world's religious philosophers, 
though presenting many points ot likeness, would not exhibit such a 
close parallelism. The question therefore arises, is there not some 
reason for this similarity ? At the time when John the Baptist appears 
in the wilderness all Asia was being traversed with Buddhistic ascetics 
corresponding very closely to him in manners, dress, and doctrines. 
They were preaching baptism by fire and water. A religious sect called 
Essenes had grown up in Palestine resembling closely the disciples of 
Gautama. It is probable that the influence of Buddha, along with the 
myths surrounding him, had spread to this western territory, that the 
Essenes were the result, that John was one of them and Jesus his disci- 
ple. The pupil, as is often the case, eclipsed his teacher, and became 
a Buddha, that is, "an enlightened one," for the west. He emphasizes 
by his life and teachings some of the most important principles of ethics, 
draws a following to himself, is surrounded by all the mythic attributes 
of his predecessor of the east and with many others peculiar to his 
nation and times, is elaborated by Greek and Roman thought, and so 
sweeps on along the wave of western emigration, over Europe, across 
the Atlantic, ever widening and deepening in influeuce. In the eighth 
century of its triumphant march Christianity met a similar stream issu- 
ing from Arabia and passing along the north of Africa, and for a time 



82 GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND JESUS CHRIST. 

it was hard to tell whether Christ or Mohammed would be the spiritual 
ruler of the west. But Charles Martel and his sturdy Franks won the 
day for the Nazarene at the battle of Tours. 

Both Gautama and Buddha were believed to fulfill the predictions of 
prophecy, the one being called Tathagata, "he who should ccme," the 
other the promised Messiah. What means this wide spread expectancy, 
among so many nations, of a great deliverer ? Why do the people ever 
look for a Savior? And why are so many men believed to be the ful- 
fillment of prophecies ? 

Man's nature is a reflex of his environments. During the dreary 
months of winter he was wont to look fondly back to the summer past, 
and mourn his present desolate fate. Then would flash upon him the 
cheering prospect of the approaching spring. "Yes" he cries, "the 
new sun will surely come, renew the world, and save us from death ! 
He will slay the great serpent and win the golden treasure ! He will 
defeat Satan and gain immortal life !" So in his national grief, the evils 
of the present only are realized. Man always lives in the "winter of 
discontent." He looks back to a golden age, a paradise in the east, 
when and where he was pure and happy. Then the accumulated expe- 
riences of many generations, crystallized in his very nature, that habit 
of looking forward to the spring, to the coming of a new sun, the great 
deliverer, asserts its power. The poets and wise men of the nation 
comfort the people with the promise of a coming man. They describe 
him rapturously, using their wonted terms of sun mythology, appropri- 
ate indeed for such a hero. By and by a truly great and noble teacher 
is born. His philosophy rises above the plane of private life and becomes 
national in significance. About his character, even during life, and 
rapidly after death gather the marvels of mythology. No falsification 
is intended ; it is the magnetism of a great man, drawing to himself 
the mythical lore, which lies in the heart of every fisherman, shepherd 
or peasant. These accretions being formed of the same fabric of those 
poetic predictions of the earlier age, it is only a matter of time before 
some one says, " Why this is the promised Messiah ! " 



THE FATED 13. 83 

Theological students very well know, from their discussions, with 
their professors at the seminary, that most of the so-called prophesies 
of Christ have direct reference to some event near at hand to the 
writer, and so are fulfilled then and there. By giving sufficient 
elasticity to words, and not being too specific in one's requirements, 
others may appear to fit approximately, especially where the .recorder 
of the later events was on the lookout himself for such cases. Never- 
theless the principal reason for belief in Messiahs is found in that com- 
mon reservoir of personification, possessed by man in all ages, from 
which is drawn, both the predictions and later descriptions of his 
heroes. 

The comparative study of religions is still a young science, but good 
results are already coming in. The scholars of Europe, India and 
China find themselves in strange and most satisfactory harmony when 
they widen their field of view to the limits of the world. From within 
the sphere of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity keen sighted 
men are inspecting the religious thought of all peoples and of all times. 
In the great libraries of our cities the results are at the disposal of the 
most humble reader. No longer is the human intellect circumscribed 
by the limits of a single stream of civilization. The days when the 
people are to be dazzled by the brilliant mysteries of a mythologic 
religion, in the effulgence of which they happen to have been born, are 
numbered. The scientific is slowly displacing the theological method 
of teaching ethics. It is the duty of every person who has the good of 
man at heart to hasten the movement. 

THE FATED 13. 

One night there was a party at the Corners. The Squire and the 
Doctor and the Parson and the Schoolmaster, in short all those impor- 
tant personages who make up the "four hundred" of a country town, 
were invited. The Parson sent in his regrets, however, when he learned 
that there was to be card-playing, and several obedient ewes of his 



84 THE FATED 13. 

flock followed their shepherd. But with these exceptions the elite were 
all there, and scarce were the kerosene lamps lit in the spacious rooms 
of the old farm house ere the heavy thud of calloused knuckles made 
the walls resound, as the ace or right bower came down upon the euchre 
table. Some played whist and counted the points. The games had 
continued but a little while, when a nervous old lady pushed back her 
chair and with features disconsolate and tones devoid of hope exclaimed 
'There's no use, Squire, we are stuck on the thirteen point !" That 
ended her playing for the evening. When the guests passed out to 
supper, the good feeling was approaching a jolly pitch, and the empty 
void which every one felt only made the anticipation of its filling a 
cause for further gladness. When the table came into view loaded 
with good, home-made wherewithal, a thrill of expectation went down 
every vagus, as the Doctor remarked at the time. The Host anxiously 
saw the company seated in a carefully arranged order which had cost 
his wife many anxious hours of thought. He was taking the last seat 
himself when a prolonged gasp attracted all attention to our old lady 
again. She was pale and breathing hard, but had strength left suffi- 
cient to moan : "This is awful ! You have sot thirteen at this table !" 
We all felt like elevating our supper, but we couldn't because it wasn't 
down. The Doctor said, with great presence of mind, "don't be alarmed, 
madam, there is nothing in that old superstition." And the Squire 
also came to our relief with, "Ah, the Doctor sees a job ahead ; well, 
I wish to file an application to draw the will. " But the Host put every- 
body in better spirits by remarking that he, being the last one down, 
was most likely to be the card, if any was to be turned up ; but he pro- 
posed to eat a hearty supper upon the prospects, nevertheless, and he 
wanted all the others to do likewise. He also remarked that later he 
was going to call on the young School-master, who had been off to 
college, to explain all about this thirteen business, so that worthy 
youngster had better be getting his wits together. 

When the abundance of biscuit and cake and turkey and mince pie 
had been washed down with creamy coffee and new cider, the ardor, 



THE FATED 13. 85 

so unfortunately dampened at the outset, waxed to a most enjoyable 
pitch, and the Doctor, being touched by a- consequent poetical emo- 
tion, offered the following with great effect : 

Here's to the maiden, sweet cider, 
The sweetest that eye e'er has seen ; 
Ah, steady the nerves, as they guide her 
To the lips of our jolly thirteen ! 

"Good, good," said the Host, "and now young School-master, what 
do you know about thirteen ?" 

The hope of the Corners then arose with feelings of intense pride ; 
for there is nothing that touches the weakness of youthful conceit like 
being called upon to instruct older people. He delighted to pour out 
upon his townsfolks the wealth of wisdom which he had gleaned in for- 
eign fields. A feeling of immense superiority welled up in his heart and 
with condescending tone and manner he began : "I fear my first few 
words will check somewhat the frivolity of the occasion. lam forced 
to say that the thirteen superstition has its origin in the Last Supper. 
There were twelve apostles present, which with Jesus made thirteen. 
He was crucified soon after. The intense feeling and interest which 
centered upon these events in succeeding centuries produced the belief 
now so prevalent, that one of thirteen persons who sit down together 
to eat will die within a year. The fatality easily became attached to 
the number itself, and so thirteen became unlucky. 

But did you ever think why Christ chose twelve apostles, thus with 
himself making thirteen ? Twelve is one of those mystic numbers 
which recur so often in all nations. There were twelve tribes of Israel ! 
we have twelve inches to the foot, twelve things in a dozen, twelve 
ounces in a pound, Troy and apothecary, twelve men on a jury, twelve 
signs of the Zodiac and twelve months in the year. Numberless others 
might be enumerated. It will be noticed that in all these the number 
twelve is optional to man, excepting the last. The earth travels around 
the sun, and the moon around the earth, each in a fixed time. The 
former divided by the latter gives twelve as the nearest integer and no 
other number could be taken. Now a number thus determined by the 



86 THE FATED 13. 

sun and moon, those planets most revered and worshiped by primitive 
man, must necessarily be often repeated in all his affairs. 

By a similar process the number seven has become mystic. The 
earth's period of rotation upon its axis divided into the moon's period 
about the earth gives twenty-nine. A month, or moonth, then origi- 
nally consisted of twenty-nine days. The holy days, or days for wor- 
shiping the moon, would naturally be selected at the four quarters. So 
the month divided into four parts gives the week of seven days and 
the seventh day a holy day or holiday. Afterwards in our more artifi- 
cial calendar the effort to make the twelve months coincide closer with 
the year placed thirty days in the month and lost the coincidence of 
the week with the moon's phases. 

In some eastern countries the year was divided into three seasons, 
and when four were adopted three months fell to each. For this reason 
the number three came to be revered, and, because of its few units and 
wonderful rhythmic charm, it has taken possession of man more com- 
pletely than any other number. 

One other remains to be noticed, the number forty. We read of the 
Israelites wandering forty years in the wildernes, of forty days rain 
before the Deluge, of Christ's fasting forty days and forty nights before 
Tiis temptation by the Devil, and we still observe forty days of Lent. 
What has thrown this number into the realms of the mysterious ? Prim- 
itive man counted upon his hands and toes ; hence he reduplicated at 
five, ten, or twenty. When the latter was done, he called twenty, one 
man, and made a scratch or score. Two men, two score, ox forty, grew 
to be a sort of indefinite, maximum limit, just as a thousand is now. 
When it rained for a long time, he said it was "forty days," and a pas- 
toral state of civilization, continuing probably for centuries, fell into 
legendary history as a forty years wandering. This habit may have been 
encouraged by the eastern custom of dividing the year into three sea- 
sons and each season into three parts of forty days each. It is easy to 
see how a rainy season of forty days would be reported as preceding 
the great flood, being repeated on a more or less perfect scale every 



THE MYSTIC 3. 87 

year. The numbers, three, seven, twelve, and forty are thus seen to 
be trademarks of mythology, and any story containing them frequently 
must be received with corresponding distrust. 

Perhaps you will be interested to know just how likely it is that one 
person out of thirteen will die within a year. In a weekly paper of a 
city of 500,000 inhabitants I notice that 150 deaths are reported in a 
week ; that would be 7,800 for a year or one person in sixty-five nearly. 
Now as sixty-five divided by thirteeen gives five, the chance of the 
superstition proving true is one in five. We have the comforting fact, 
my friends, that there are four chances to one in our favor. " 

With this he sat down, feeling that he had done humanity a great 
favor by thus silencing forever one outspoken popular error. "Good 
enough, good enough," said the Host, "those are big odds, we'll take 
em !" "Oh dear, I never could understand Aggers," said the old lady ; 
" and now that I know the fatal thirteen is founded on sacred history, 
I am sure it is true !" 

"But," said the Squire, "it is not a legitimate deduction." "No," 
remarked the Doctor, "it is a cerebral miscarriage." 

THE MYSTIC 3. 

The human body is supremely rhythmic. It loves the dance, the 
song, the poem. It throbs and beats and vibrates to a hundred thous- 
and rhythms which we know not of, but many we do know and marvel 
at their power. The systole and diastole of the heart keep ever on with 
their lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. In and out the nostrils stream the twin 
currents of air tirelessly forced by nature's automatic pump. Each 
person has his special swing of leg and arm in walking and an increase 
or decrease in rapidity brings extra fatigue. Our speech proceeds in 
certain periods, and just so often must come the pause. The glands 
secrete and excrete periodically. We sleep, we wake, we work, we 
rest, we sicken, we convalesce, we live, we die in one coutinuous net- 
work of recurrent rhythms. Will it seem strange, then, if we find that 



88 THE MYSTIC 3. 

the mind is also rhythmic ? Would we not expect that thought, the 
most developed form of nervous action, should partake of this univer- 
sal characteristic? 

In music the various movements are built either upon the number 
two or three. Marches, galops, schottisches, and the like, are of the 
former, but the waltz, the fascinating waltz, takes the triple motion. 
Highly significant is it, that the waltz has fairly monopolized the ball- 
room. Some charm there must be about this number three, which crowds 
its brother two to the wall. How enticing, indeed, when the low, vel- 
vety, accented beat swells from the bass, to be lightly followed by 
two gentler touches of the treble strings, while the melody keeps 
weaving itself about this framework, like grapes upon a trellis ! No 
wonder that youths and maidens, already touched by Cupid's darts, 
answer responsively from their inmost natures and lose themselves, 
hearts and souls, in an ecstacy of motion ! 

And in poetry, too, with all its beautiful combinations of meters, 
fitted to touch every phase of thought and feeling, none stirs the sense 
of rhythm so thoroughly as the triple verse. With what delight do we 
fall into the movement of Moore's 

"Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea ; 
Jehovah has conquered, his people are free." 

There is music in the movement independent of the thought. 

But it is our object to trace the spiritual power of this number three 
in regions less explored. We shall find that its love has irresistibly 
influenced man's thought in all times and countries. He has been play- 
ing upon its measure, while building his ideas of life and destiny, and 
interwoven in his system of philosophy and religion are numerous 
tenets, still deemed vital, but which are only the chrystallizations of 
his devotion to the triple rhythm. 

To the Brahmins we go for a most ancient illustration. The Eternal 
Supreme Essence, Parrabrahma created the universe, so they believe, 
by self reflection and revealed himself first as Brahma, the Creating 
Power, then as Vishnu, the Preserving Power, and lastly as Siva, the 



THE MYSTIC 3. 89 

Destroying Power. Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, originally three reve- 
lations of one deity, become in time three distinct gods. 

In Egypt there were three orders of gods. The first was for the priest- 
hood and represented the ideal and spiritual part of religion ; the second 
impersonated human faculties and powers ; and the third was made up 
of forms and forces in nature. Each town or city had its specially hon- 
ored triad of deities to whom its temples were dedicated. They often 
consisted of father, mother, and son ; but sometimes of two gods and 
a king. Osiris with Isis and Horus formed the most celebrated triad 
and was worshiped throughout the land. 

In Greek and Roman Mythology we find Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, 
the Hellenic Trinity — Jupiter with his three-forked lightning, Neptune 
with his trident, and Pluto with his three headed dog, Cerberus ; the 
Three Graces, beautiful women who represent the brightness, color 
and perfume of summer ; the Three Fates, stern sisters upon whose 
spindle was spun the thread of every human life ; the Three Hesperides, 
daughters of Atlas, in whose western gardens golden apples grew ; the 
Three Harpies, mischievous meddlers who personated the effects of 
violent winds ; Three Gorgons, whose terrible faces turned to stone 
all who beheld them ; and the Three Furies whose mission was to 
pursue criminals. 

In the Scandinavian Eddas we have Har, Jafuhar, andThridi, and in 
the temple of Upsal are the statues of Odin, Thor and Frey on three 
thrones one above the other. 

The first Babylonian triad was Anu, Bel and Hea ; the second con- 
sisted of the Moon, the Sun and the Atmosphere. 

Max Muller says that a very old conception of life in India is, that each 
man is born a debtor ; first to the sages, the founders and fathers of his 
religion ; secondly to the Gods ; thirdly to his parents. Having paid 
these three debts, a man is considered free in this world. 

In Hebrew the word Adam is spelt with three letters, A. D. M. and 
here is its explanation according to the Talmud: "God did ordain 
that the world should last as long as He sees it good. The first man 



90 THE MYSTIC 3. 

that was created was called Adam ; the second man who was a man 
after God's own heart was called David; and the last man that ever 
will be born will be the Messiah. The first letter A. stands for Adam, 
the second D. for David and the third M. for Messiah." Mystical and 
weak as this may appear, nevertheless, it shows the power of the num- 
ber three, and that is what we are tracing. 

Let us not forget that Noah is reported to have had three sons, Shem 
Ham and Japheth, and under this theory all men must seek for their 
origin in this trio. 

The Rosecrucians taught that there were three ascending heirarchies 
of angels, the Terephim, the Seraphim and the Cherubim ; three great 
worlds above, Empyraeum, Aethereum, and the Elementary region. 
Three celebrated emblems were carried in the Greek mysteries the 
Phallus, the Egg and the Serpent. 

We are told "that there were three baptismal bards of the Isle of 
Britain — Taleisin, Merddin Emrys, and Merddin ; three circles of exist- 
ence—the all-enclosing, which contains deity alone, the circle of felicity 
which is the abode of the good, and the circle of evil. All animated 
beings have three states of existence to pass through — the state of evil, 
the state of freedom in the human form, and the state of love, which is 
heaven. 

Three things plunged a man back into the changes of evil — pride, 
falsehood and cruelty. There have been three languages — the first, 
that which Adam spoke in Paradise, the second that of Moses passing 
through the Red Sea, the third that of the Cymry which was that of 
Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam." 

Still we behold man groping about in mythical superstition and ever 
recurring to his three-fold theory, a magnet to which his soul is the 
armature. 

The peripatetic philosopher assigns to man three souls— the vegeta- 
tive, the animal and the rational. In one curious poem on the subject 
they are located in the brain, the heart and the liver. Trifoliated plants 
have been held sacred from remote antiquity. Zoroaster remodelled 



THE MYSTIC 3. 9 1 

the institute of the Magi and divided it into three great classes—learn- 
ers, masters, and perfect scholars. Three has been called of old "the 
perfect harmony." The Ashantees of Africa adopt it for their sacred 
number and 3 3 3 3 is the number of the kings wives. 

Chrysostom says that the three gi&s of the three Magi, gold, myrrh 
and frankincense, were mystic gifts signifying that Christ was king^ 
man and God. The old legend of the Holy Rood tells how the tree of 
which Christ's cross was made grew up irom three stems, one of cedar, 
one of cypress, and one of pine. The "three wicked winds" have been 
interpreted as "the world, the flesh and the devil." 

In the Voeluspa are mentioned three knowing maidens, who record 
events ; three roots extended to three regions under the ash tree, 
Yggdrasill ; Hela dwells under one, under another the Frost Giants, 
under the third mortal men. The ash is the mundane tree embracing 
with its roots the whole universe. 

Tacitus says that the three sons of Maunus were believed to be the 
fathers of the three principal nations of Germans ; the Ingaevones, the 
Iscaevones and the Hermiones. The Romans imported the tradition 
into those northern wilds, that the Cyclop, Polyhemus, had by Galatea 
three sons named Celtus, Illyrius, and Gallus. Hesiod mentions three 
sons from the marriage of Heaven and Earth — Celtus, Briareus and 
Gyges. 

Thus does the child-man seek to explain his origin and continually 
falls into the mythical cradle which rocks so soothingly in triple 
measure. 

The idolatrous Arabs generally made use of three divination arrows, 
on one of which were written, "My Lord hath commanded me," on 
another, "My Lord hath forbidden me," and the third was blank. 

In Buddhism the three causes oi demerits are lust, anger and igno- 
rance ; the first has for its destroying agent fire ; anger has water ; 
ignorance, wind. The three precious things are Buddha, the law, and 
the assembly. The sacred books have three great divisions and three 
obeisances are made in honor of the three precious things. Buddha's 



02 THE MYSTIC 3. 

images are made in three positious and the iri-rattan of the Hindoos is 
the triple gemmed symbol of the Buddhists. 

In China the Trikaya signifies three bodies — the spiritual body per- 
manent and indestructible ; the form belonging to every Buddhist as a 
reward for his merits ; and the b#dy which assumes any shape in order 
to propagate Buddhism. 

The Hindoos worship three classes of divinities— the village god, the 
household god, and the personal or patron god. 

Nial Trassach, an ancient king of Ireland was so surnamed because 
upon the night of his birth three showers are said to have fallen — of 
honey, of silver, and of blood. 

In Russia there are three changes of rings in the marriage ceremony ; 
lathers are usually said to have three sons ; the heroes of olden fiction 
rode through three times nine countries ; the bravest are always thirty- 
three years old ; they achieve their deeds only upon the third attempt. 

August Comte in his Positive Philosophy concludes that the history 
of religion exposes three stages ; the fetichistic, where each object of 
nature is endowed with manlike powers and worshiped ; the polytheis- 
tic, where objects are grouped and a deity put over each class ; and 
the monotheistic, where one anthropomorphic God rules overall. John 
Fiske in his Cosmic Philosophy devotes considerable space to showing 
that this threefold division does not correspond to the actual move- 
ment but is highly artificial. 

Finally we notice that in the fourth century, Christendom yieldt d to 
this mental tendency, to this power of three. Long and bitter was the 
struggle between the adherents of Arius and Athenasius, or in a word 
between Unitarianism and Trinitarianism ; but it was inevitable that 
the victory would fall to Athenasius, for he was the champion of the 
idea of three. That irresistible longing, latent in the nature of man, 
which has drawn him toward this number in all times and places was 
sure to break through the Jewish wall of Unity which had been so many 
centuries in the building. The western world must have a triple God; 
but notice the tendency to stop here. Mysterious and undefined as is 



TIOUGHNIOGA. 93 

the notion of the Holy Ghost, the mass of people assent to it, because 
it completes the three, but more definite, more conceivable, and more 
logical as is the godship of Mary, it is rejected, for it breaks the magic 
circle. It is not inappropriate to call attention here to the experiment 
of the American Base Ball players to employ four strikes in batting. It 
was brief indeed ; the next year they went back to three. "Three times 
and out" is not a mere saying of our childhood, but has an underlying 
philosophy beneath it, deep and powerful. 

Now see the bearing of the argument. We have shown that man is 
a bundle of rhythms ; that prominent among these is the rhythm of three. 
We have seen that it delights his nature in the dance, in music, in 
poetry, and in thought. We have traced it through quite a sweep of 
mythology and resulting religious ideas. And now it is plain, that its 
prevalence is due, not to external truth in facts, but to man's subjective 
desire. He makes waltzes, poems, triads, and trinities, because his 
nature loves the rhythm three. 

Its greatest competitor in his soul is his love for unity, for one. It 
would be easy to show how this desire has led him many a time far 
from external truth. Where multiplicity was the fact he sought persist- 
ently for unity. Indeed this is one of the most serious mental preju- 
dices with which the searcher for truth has to contend. 

Now between the love of three and the love of one a world-old strug- 
gle has been going on ; and as a result let us notice, in conclusion, an 
attempt at compromise, a blank contradiction of terms, over which bril- 
liant theological intellects have frequently floundered— our Tri-une 
God. 

TIOUGHNIOGA. 

Have you heard of the legend of Tioughnicga, 
Altahalah, Conduca and noble Kenotah ? 
Did'st know that the river which gracefully winds 
A-down through our wheat-fields our corn and our clover, 



94 TIOUGHNIOGA. 

Where the ripe yellow sheaf, the farmer boy binds, 
And feels thankful to God, when the hot day is over, 
Is wrapped round with story of brave deeds well done, 
In the days of the red-man, when a bow was the gun ? 

Old Conduca, scarred and worn, 

Could no longer lead the braves 

'Gainst the threat'ning Mingoe storm, 

Gathering northward by the waves. 

So he called Kenotah to him ; 

Through and through the old chief knew him 

For he loved his younger daughter, 

Altahalah pure as water : 

"When the crimson moon went down, 

Colored with Lenape gore 

Borne from off the battle ground 

I was, weary, wounded, sore. 

A few moons more, this branchless tree 

Will have fallen to the earth ; 

You must keep our people free, 

Be true, Kenotah to your birth." 

The dark eyes of Kenotah flashed, 

And his tall and manly form 

Stood erect, as through him dashed 

Streams of Indian blood and warm. 

Then he gathered all the warriors 
And he stirred them with his fervor 
And they made him leader o'er them 
To protect their long loved valley. 

The sun has reached its zenith near, 
The trees with dark green foliage wave, 
O'er the hill the antJered deer 



TIOUGHNIOGA. 95 

Is bounding, while he eyes the brave. 
Three painted Mingoes from the north 
At Conduca's wigwam stand ; 
Their faces rough and scarred and swarth 
Lenape cabins they demand. 

Altahalah like a fawn 
Bounds away to her Kenotah, 
Ere the warriors know she's gone, 
Both appear before the Mingoes. 

"Talk not to me of blood," he said, "it's my delight ; 

I was never born, but from a stump, 

Shivered by a thunderbolt, 

Came I forth." 

They quail, and with low murmurs slink away. 

That night a fearful storm was brewing, 

And midst the thunder's roll 

Altahalah heard the warwhoop 

Of the northmen coming southward ; 

How her timid being trembled ! 

How she shuddered at the danger ! 

How she watched the brave Lanapes, 

As they struggled with the Mingoes ! 

How she thanked the Great Good Spirit, 

When she saw Kenotah drive them ! 

Oh ! What anguish when her father, 

Old Conduca, scarred and honored, 

Bit the dust pierced by an arrow ! 

"I'll protect thee," said Kenotah ; 

"Calm thyself; thy father's hunting 

Where the Mingoe does not threaten, 

Where the warwhoop neyer worries." 



g6 TIOUGHNIOGA. 

Slyly stealing like a wild-cat 
Crept a dark athletic savage, 
Altahalah seized, and running, 
'Scaped the eye of brave Kenotah. 
Many moons he followed watching 
For a sight of his own promised, 
Through the tangle neath the branches, 
Looking, straining, longing ever ; 
Who can think that painted savage 
Is all wild and rough and barb'rous? 

•j* *?* *£ *p H* H* 

Deserted is Tioughnioga ; 

All the red men have gone southward ; 

Yet Kenotah wanders lonely ; 

Altahalah still he seeks for. 

See yon dusky maid reclining 

On the bank of her own river ; 

Long dark braids of hair are hanging 

Over her uncovered shoulders ; 

Eyes as black as raven's plumage, 

Form developed true to nature, 

Still she chants her fav'rite love-song, 

Longing hoping for Kenotah. 

Now she hears the dip of paddle, 

Sees the splashing, dripping water, 

Sees that old familiar white plume ; 

It is, it is her dear Kenotah ! 

Quicker now the boatman's motion, 
Bends his lithe and graceful figure, 
Swell and shrink his rounded muscles ; 
How the light boat skims the water ! 
Ere he reaches near the maiden, 
They exchange those well known signals, 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 97 

Waving hands and shouting voices ; 
While the heart-beat flutters, quickens. 
Now at last their eyes are drinking 
Draughts of love from out each other, 
Then she leaps upon his bosom 

There infolded dreams of Heaven. 

****** 
Strange these legends, how they mingle 
Fact and fancy all together 
On the border-land of spirit, 
Overlapping soul and matter ! 
In some hidden mystic manner 
These two lovers there embracing 
Are the branches of the river ; 
He the East Branch, she the West Branch, 
Joined in wedlock near Port Watson. 

Flowing on united ever, 
Down the winding beautious valley 
Midst the waters of Chenango, 

They together seek the ocean. 
****** 

Now we hook the artful pick'rel, 

Build our bridges made of iron, 

Watch the thund'ring locomotive 

Move its long and heavy coal-train ; 

And we never stop to think of 

All the changes moving onward, 

Of the wondrous Evolution. 

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 
[written for a family reunion.] 

Fellow Kindred : The thought of the nineteenth century will go 
down to history characterized by a single word, Evolution. The rapid 



98 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 

expansion of knowledge during the last four hundred years formed a 
mass of raw material, which has now been woven into a beautiful fabric. 
Out of confusion has come order. He who thinks independent of Evo- 
lution, may well count himself of the eighteenth rather than the nine- 
teenth century. We are gathered here to celebrate a social institution, 
one regarded by all as fundamental to society. What can be more 
appropriate, than to examine a little into the history of the family? 
What can be more profitable than to spend a little time inquiring of 
the whence, the how and the whither? The evolution of the family 
shall be our theme. But what has taken hundreds of thousands of years 
to evolve, can not be minutely traced in a few minutes. We can only 
glance here and there at the more interesting stages along the line of 
progress. 

The first question that one naturally asks is, why has the family come 
into existence ? Why do father and mother remain together in a per- 
manent home circle ? A glance at the animal kingdom from the 
amoeba to man, brings out the fact, that as the animals become more 
highly developed, more complex in their structures, it takes longer for 
the young to become able to lead an independent life. Hence paren- 
tal care is more and more prolonged. The mother remains with her off- 
spring for a period increasing in length, as we go up the grade toward 
man. The father next lends assistance, the two are united during the 
infancy period of their young, and at last in the more civilized races of 
men, for life. It is, then , the gradual prolonging of the time needed to 
bring the individual to the adult condition, that has brought about the 
institution we honor today. 

Our prehistoric forefathers, judging from present peoples of like 
degree of advancement, had no such elaborate system of marriage as 
we employ. Like the animals below them, they won their wives by 
feats of strength. Plenty of races still exist, where the choice of a 
husband is determined by wrestling matches, jumping and the like. 
Our poetry and romance is beautified with descriptions of marvels 
done by the hero before his beloved. And in the heart of the maiden 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 99 

of to-day there hides the relic of this custom, for nothing makes it pal- 
pitate more than rounded muscles and athletic skill. In those prehis- 
toric days the young gallant, charmed with a rustic belle, captured her 
by force and carried her away. If he became dissatisfied, he gave her 
a sound drubbing and told her to return to her father ; this was marriage 
and divorce. The girl resisted the capture from genuine or feigned 
dislike of the swain, and we may picture many a romantic chase in 
those primitive wilds, where speed of limbs won fair lady. And today 
maidens love to be chased and caught ; witness any old fashioned 
donation party. 

In this rude state of nature we could not expect those ideas of pro- 
priety which are such well established principles of advanced civiliza- 
tion. One man with many wives, or one woman with many husbands 
was oftener the case than a single partner. Marriage between brothers 
and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters was the rule. It 
is only in advanced civilization, when long experience has taught that 
incest brings diseased progeny, that prohibitory sentiments and laws 
are developed. 

The family simple consists of father, mother and children. But in the 
bitter struggle for existence, when our ancesters chipped their rude 
implements of defence from flint rocks and fought the cave bear, hyena 
and fellow man, hand to hand, it was inevitable that they should com- 
bine as much as possible. Hence simple families, connected in any way 
by blood or marriage, integrate into a tribe. At the head of this com- 
pound family is the patriarch, a most important personage. 

He is the father from wnom most of the tribe have sprung, or represents 
that idea. His age and wisdom and deeds of valor command respect. 
He is looked up to as something beyond the common man, and the 
superstitious minds of these children of the world clothe him with mys- 
tery and supernatural power. After death his spirit follows them and 
participates in the weal and woe of the tribe forever. Time raises his 
memory to the dignity of an ancestral God. Thus Jehovah was first con- 
sidered as the God of the Jews only, warring with them against the Gods 



IOO THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 

of other tribes. The belief that the clan has decended from some animal 
or thing of nature, arises probably from choosing a name, embodying 
characteristics of the person, who, long after, becomes confused with 
the thing itself. Thus grow up the tribal totems. Israelitish names 
translated into English become, the Dog, the Dove, the Hyena, the 
Lion's Whelp, the Strong Ass, the Adder ; and likewise American 
Indian names become, Big Bear, White Buffalo, Wolf, Red Cloud, 
Black Hawk, Fox, Crow and Turtle. Nothing is more common than 
to choose names from the heavenly bodies, hence the stars, moon and 
sun become confused with the ancestors bearing those names. The 
Pharaohs of Egypt were believed to be descended from the sun and 
after death were taken in their father's chariot of fire in his daily jour- 
ney over the course of the heavens. Sun worship does not seem so 
strange, when we think that all life is due to solar heat, and when we 
see how closely allied it is to other forms of worship, which we consider 
higher. 

The "struggle for existence" waxes hot between these compound 
families, these wandering tribes. War is their almost daily life. When 
victory falls to the tribe, each brave comes in loaded with the spoils of 
battle. And what can better show his prowess, than to bring in cap- 
tured wives of the enemy. Honored is the brave who holds wives 
bearing the totems of other tribes. Sons born from such unions, we 
know, would be likely to grow up strong and heroic men. Hence the 
biological principle of cross-breeding, in conjunction with natural pride, 
has in time developed into a custom of civilized marriage, and now 
marriage between cousins, even, is considered as of doubtful policy. 

Laziness is the desire to live with the least exertion. This character- 
istic is just as prevalent in the lower animals and in primitive man as 
in us. So these tribes, instead of settling down and tilling the soil, 
wandered about plucking and eating and killing. In time they learn 
to capture and tame the milder animals of the wilds, and henceforth 
take with them on their ramblings dogs and sheep, cows and horses. 
This is one of the bright spots in what seems the heartless history of 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. IOI 

man. Enmity gives way for a little while to friendship. He fosters. and 
loves these mute companions. But alas, this is brief! Their fleeces 
and their milk purchase a short ransom, after which comes the delayed 
slaughter. 

The deeper question of something to eat smears the gentle picture 
with blood. 

Our compound family, when forced by scarcity of food to cease wan- 
dering and settle down to work, forms the village community. Now 
they begin to till, manufacture and traffic. Adjacent groups, connected 
by trade and intermarriage, throw aside old grudges, make treaties, 
and form a little nation. The oldest, bravest and most revered patri- 
arch becomes a rudimentary king. And so the integration goes on ; 
small nations unite to form greater ones ; these conquer weaker combi- 
nations and annex their territory. The methods of warfare develop 
step by step with this growth, and in the Ruhmes Halle at Berlin one 
may see the implements which man has used to fight his fellow man, 
arranged by centuries and running away back into prehistoric times. 
Men increase in a geometrical ratio and so the world keeps crowded. 
They fight for room, for territory. By the survival of the fittest the sur- 
face of the earth is at last occupied by a number of great nations, which 
are really immense highly compounded families, speaking, for the most 
part, a common tongue and having as the head a king— king by the 
right of birth — king because he represents the patriarch, the father. 
Upon his banner may still be seen his totem, but now it is called his coat 
of arms. Its origin has been forgotten in the lapse of time. About this 
father of the nation is wrapped a dazzling glamour of mystery and 
superstition. He is believed king by "divine right," yea, his person 
is sacred and he is even thought a God. Here then is the family at its 
completest evolution. 

But after evolution comes dissolution ; when systems reach their 
height and pass beyond their state of equilibrium, they crumble. In 
the effort to keep the power within the favored family, constani inter- 
marriage begets bad blood and poor brains. Led on by over confi- 



102 THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 

dence in this growth of ages, weak kings forget the human individuals 
and simple families composing the nation. They are swept aside with 
a word as only the "masses." But ah, King, these masses are what 
your so-called divinity is built of! So slow, so long has been the 
building, you have forgotten the process and the material. But now 
there comes a rumbling amongst these masses ! What are the words 
which reach your ears from out the confusion? "We must have 
bread !" The same cause, that slowly built the kingdom, now will 
tear it down. Something to eat, "the struggle for existence," behold 
it again ! Louder the turmoil waxes, until it bursts in revolution. 
Long live the Republic ! rings from every hungry throat. 

Now comes a general wreckage of everything depending on the 
family; lords, dukes, counts, kings become simply "misters." The 
Republican ridicules pride in pedigree and writes in his constitution 
"we are all created equal." The republic is built of citizens, he says, 
not of families. 

We are getting near home now. We see that the motive which 
brings us together must not be family pride, or we are non-republican 
in sentiment. No, the pleasures of meeting old friends, of talking 
over old associations, of looking into family faces, and feeling the 
grasp of hands warmed by kindred blood ; these must be our pleas for 
meeting. 

And now in the general wreck, which revolution brings to the com- 
pound family, what is to become of the family simple ? Will it also go 
to pieces and the home be destroyed ? The rapid increase in the num- 
ber of unmarried people in France and the United States has made 
many apprehensive. Divorces are growing more frequent, and our 
monthly reviews are full of articles upon this question. 

"Is marriage a failure?" has become a query of the times. The 
same cause which brought the family into existence will preserve it. 

Children, to become strong, healthy, intellectual adults, need 
parental fostering for a time which has not yet reached its maximum. 
To cope successfully with the world of to-day, the son needs the co- 



THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 1 03 

operation of his father for a longer period than ever before. Any 
country, which disregards this vital principle, will go down in the 
struggle of nations, because of internal weakness of its individuals. 
Fear not for the permanency of the simple family ; it rests upon 
nature's own foundation. 

What an interesting study is man ! See him stealing into his cave- 
home at twilight, to lay himself upon the ground, to dream of desperate 
fights with beasts and snakes — dreams which are with us yet, the dim, 
sympathetic pulsations of the brain to harsh cadences inherited from 
by gone days ! See him driving piles into the muddy bottom of those 
Swiss lakes and building his simple little hut of wattle-work and clay ! 
See him wandering hither and thither, seeking pastures for his flocks, 
a tent for his home, the world for his possessions ! See him at last 
building cities and nations, conquering nature, navigating earth, air 
and water, binding steam and electricity, exploring the universe with 
his thought ! 

It is the delight of the student of the present, that he can thus look 
upon the phenomena of to-day as the results of slow growths of time. 
The mind feels satisfied, when it can trace a train of causation, 
whereby some fact has come to be, and when this cannot be found, we 
are learning to wait patiently, confident that further study will bring it 
to light. One such we have already partially traced ; let us now carry 
it a little farther. Primitive man worshiped his forefathers, and be- 
lieved their spirits fought with the tribe in its wars. Is there not a new 
meaning now to those words so familiar to all, " Our Father which art 
in Heaven ?" 

With the building of nations comes the idea of God as King of Kings. 
But when the monarchy is crumbling and reintegrating as the republic 
this man-like notion of deity is giving way to more abstract concep- 
tions. In a republic we are loth to think of God as sitting upon a 
throne and wearing a crown ; this is not our highest idea of govern- 
ment. 



104 THE DIVINING ROD. 

Just as the power of the king was found to consist of a summation 
of assenting individuals, forming the people ; so we are beginning to 
seek for the Supreme Power in the forces of nature round about us. 
While we must admit the existence of an Infinite Absolute Summa- 
tion, we feel that it is outside the sphere of our conception, and no 
longer cherish our childish notions of it as Father, King, or Man, but 
reluctantly give up the fruitless attempt to conceive it and humbly, 
reverently confess it unknowable. But we continue our study of its 
phenomena the more zealously, noting the sequences and coincidences, 
discovering the laws of their actions. 

In the physical world and in the psychic world, we find that like 
causes produce like effects. There is no fickleness. And when we 
look for rules to guide us in our moral conduct, we are rejoiced with 
the discovery that actions in harmony with these laws of nature bring 
pleasure and are right, actions opposed, bring pain and are wrong. 
We conclude, then, that the whole duty of man is to study, ponder and 
obey. 

THE DIVINING ROD. 

The continued hum of the circular saw and the consequent proces- 
sion of log-teams, bringing down to the mills each winter hundreds of 
beeches, hemlocks and maples, is fast letting the sunlight into the re- 
cesses of our once thickly- wooded hillsides. The raindrops which be- 
fore trickled through the soil, and following the trend of the first im- 
pervious rocklayer, came bubbling out, where the stratum reaches the 
surface in a copious spring, now are caught up by evaporation and re- 
turned immediately to the atmosphere. The farmer sees the stream, 
which fills his watering trough, grow gradually less, until it stops, first 
in droughts and then entirely, His lands become parched and barren 
every August and he hears the cows wailing for green pastures and 
cool water-brooks. The price per acre goes down, western competi- 
tion reduces the demand for his produce, heavy bonds are put upon 



THE DIVINING ROD. log 

the town for railroad, and in the midst of all this is it strange that those 
remnants of a savage state, beliefs in supernatural agencies assert them- 
selves? Surely the evil spirits working against him are gaining the as- 
cendency over the beneficent. 

Just at this time comes along the man with the Divining Rod ; a lean, 
lank specimen, all skin and bones, with a fiendish smile on his pigeon 
face. You easily imagine magnetic currents running all over his system 
and as he cracks his knuckle-joints, you interpret them as electric dis- 
charges. He leers down upon his nervous victim, draws forth his 
magic wand, a willow or witch hazel crotch, and offers to find by the 
assistance of hidden powers streams of living water [provided you will 
give him two dollars aud a half per day and board, while digging for 
them ] Then he stalks like a specter along the slope of the hill, hold- 
ing in front the mystic fetich. Periodically it dips its obedient head 
and points to the ground and our seer counts the paces from the begin- 
ning of its troubling to the place of vertical position ; for so many feet 
must he delve before reaching water. Now we also take the crotch 
and perchance it may go down at the same point. We are convinced ; 
our superstition and our pocketbook are touched simultaneously. He 
comes, he digs, he finds ! Can there be a doubt as to the genuineness 
of this occult power, when the above experience is repeated time and 
again upon the farms of honest intelligent citizens ? Test after test is 
made only to add to the confidence in the miracle: the wand is at- 
tracted by a water-pipe running under the floor in the house ; it dips 
when the holder rides over a bridge ; it never fails where water is 
known to flow and many are ready to attest that excellent springs have 
been found by its assistance. 

But now appears upon the scene that self-conceited man of science, 
who thinks he knows everything, that cruel skeptic, who delights in 
knocking the foundations from under the most cherished beliefs of our 
fathers. He is always a young man, a mere stripling, who has read a 
book or two which treat upon the philosophy of the matter in hand, 
explaining the causes which produce the wonderful effect and stating 



lo6 THE DIVINING ROD. 

the laws which govern it. He ridicules the sacred exhibition and 
taking the crotch makes it go up or down, toward or away from him, 
makes it pop over with a jerk or bend so slowly that the stream of 
water would be four miles down, if calculated according to the seer's 
rule. Then he antics over the route taken by the Diviner singing : 

You just watch this slick crotch 

While it seeks for water ; 
Down she goes toward my toes, 

Just as I have taught her. 
I can tell just how low 

You will have to dig for 
A nice well ; you don't know 

What I use this twig for ! 

We are disgusted, we are mad at his nonsensical trifling with our 
most sincere convictions, but somehow or other he seems able to 
manipulate that crotch better than the magnetic gentleman and we ask 
for an explanation. "Why, you see," he says, "when the willow is 
held with the heavy end up and the limber branches below, it is in a 
very delicate equilibrium and the least twist with the fingers or spread- 
ing apart of the hands will throw it over one way or the other ; a little 
practice will enable one to make it waltz about to his heart's content. 
The water has nothing to do with it, even in the hand of professionals; 
for I fooled a most excellent medium once by having a friend shut the 
water off, that ran under the floor to the bath room, just before he 
made his trial trip ; the rod went down with its usual promptness and 
pointed to the empty pipe." "But," we say, "there is Mr. So and So, 
who is a man of undoubted integrity ; he believes in the wonderful 
power and practices it ; it works with him and he has the best kind of 
success in finding water ; he has worked for me ; I have paid him some 
one hundred and fifty dollars for his services." "A most profitable 
and excellent belief, my friend/ replies the tormentor, "but a true 
explanation of the causes will not question your friend's honesty nor 
deny the facts. He, no doubt, is a good judge of where water ought to 
be found, has made the lay of the land and the probable depths neces- 



THE DIVINING ROD. 107 

sary to dig a matter of careful study from experience. When he takes 
the wand in hand with complete faith in its efficiency and at the same 
time an active, bright conception of the territory over which he walks, 
he expects it to go down at about a certain place, he would be disap- 
pointed if it did not. Now this expectancy will produce in his muscles 
by involuntary, unconscious, reflex action, contractions exactly fitted 
to turn the willow over. Thus if he knows of water, above which he 
is walking, it is sure to act, and if secretly the current has been turned 
off, where generally it is running, the movement will take place just 
the same. In my own case, I do not depend upon these involuntary 
contractions, but knowingly make the twig operate by twisting and 
spreading it. Where you will find one honest professional who earns a 
living by divining you will find two who use my method ; and the latter 
are the most skillful with the rod, though they may not be with the 
pick and shovel. The hazel-fork has long been believed by many 
persons on both sides the Atlantic to possess divining powers not only 
with reference to water but mineral veins, and has even been used like 
the planchette and rapping table to give superhuman information in 
general. It will bow its assent when the right question is asked and 
remain upright at other times. If the experiment is carefully and hon- 
estly performed the answers will be found to correspond exactly with 
the opinions and beliefs of the person holding it. The reason for a 
crotched stick being chosen is historical. The divining rod is a rem- 
nant of mythologic belief and represents the forked lightning which 
does cleave the rocks in search for water and. veins of iron. These 
conclusions are the result of most careful study and are perfectly plain 
and reasonable to any person who has studied the human body enough 
to know what reflex actions are. The subject is briefly and accurately 
treated in Carpenter's Mental Physiology, section 242." 

And then this bundle of egotism having, as he thinks, astonished us 
with his profound wisdom, moves gaily down the road, whirling a little 
cane about his finger and stopping now and then to practice his favorite 
amusement of blowing one ring of cigarette smoke through another. 



Io8 THE CLAIRVOYANT. 



THE CLAIRVOYANT. 



Old Mother Figita was beginning to give way to disease. She had 
scrambled along the journey of life till she had reached the hysterical 
regions. Her digestive works were severely worn and quite frequently 
slipped a cog. She was not afraid to die, for she held a Lombard, 
guaranteed mortgage on Heaven, and looked forward, at times, with 
ecstatic joy to a reunion with her own dear Jonathan Figita, who had 
preceded her to those Celestial Regions. But yet, for someunexplain- 
able reason, whenever her athletic stomach began its grand horizontal 
bar act, she sent her dutiful son, John, off in great haste for the doctor. 
This good old man had tried, one by one, all the gastric tonics in the 
books, and each, though efficient for a little, finally refused to lie 
quietly and comfortably above the mainspring of her action. Pepsin 
would not do, vischy-water only held on a week, Sherry and egg, 
though with difficulty introduced, owing to a membership in the W. C 
T. U., retained its beneficent effect so long that the doctor took courage 
and concluded he had found the desired " balm of Gilead." But time 
dispelled, or more properly expelled, this last hope. 

One evening, at twilight, Mrs. Figita called her son to her side and, 
placing her hand fondly upon his manly brow, said in tones full of 
anxiety : "John, you must hitch up the old mare and drive down to 
Spiritville to see Miss Covert about my health . Go to-night, after dark 
and come back early to-morrow morning before people are awake. 
Human skill has given me up. I must appeal to something higher 
now. Do not tremble, my son ; do your duty to your old mother and 
fear not. I really believe that, when Miss Covert goes into those clair- 
voyant spells, a devil takes possession of her body ; for she can see 
right through hills and houses, and inside your figure. She can travel 
with you, in the spirit, all over the country aud describe the buildings 
and trees, and people whom she has never seen. Go, my dear son, 
brave all for me ! Here is a lock of my hair and a ten-dollar bill." 

We can only hint at the turbulence of mind in which that country 
youth took his lonely drive to the house of what he looked upon as a 



THE CLAIRVOYANT. 109 

sort of demoniacal witch; how he jumped at every moaning wind and 
hooting- owl and saw ghosts standing in the road and vanishing over the 
fences ; how the steady old mare grew skittish at his spasmodic jerks 
upon the reins and shied hither and thither as she had never done be- 
fore ; how this convinced her driver that all the hobgoblins of hell 
were abroad that night for his especial benefit. Suffice it to say that 
the journey prepared him thoroughly for the full appreciation of the 
coming experiences. 

In due time he w T as presented to the clairvoyant, a little old woman, 
thin, wrinkled, with a face expressive of great anxiety and eyes deep 
set and piercing. She complained of weariness from the constant 
stream of patients which poured in upon her by day and by night, and 
casually remarked that her price for going into the clairvoyant state 
was fifteen dollars. But when John produced the lock of hair and pro- 
tested that his mother had sent the last ten dollars she could muster, 
Miss Covert generously dropped off a V and concluded to take a turn 
of only two-thirds strength. 

"Watch me closely," she said, "and convince yourself that I am no 
fraud." Then she tied a bandage tightly around her head, placing a 
small fragment of meteoric stone underneath and against her forehead. 
Stepping to the wall, she pressed a secret spring and a little round 
window flew open above, giving a pretty view of the stars, prominent 
among which was the planet Jupiter. She gazed fixedly upon it for 
some minutes, her hands clasped in a suppliant attitude. Then sinking 
into an easy chair, seemingly exhausted, she motioned to John and 
said, "come closer, let me look into your soul," John's heart pounded 
away at his superincumbent frame-work so loudly that he fancied she 
could hear it, but, remembering his mother's farew r ell words, he moved 
timidly forward, avoiding her eye as much as possible. "Have you a 
watch ?" she asked ; "please look at the time and do not tell me." 
John drew out his old nickel-plated pride and carefully concealed the 
face while he eyed it closely. "Ah," she remarked, "it lacks the 
minute hand, but the hour hand points exactly to that last dot before 
the eleven, and now the seconds hand is passing the number forty — 



IIO THE CLAIRVOYANT. 

there, it is by !" John was losing his head entirely ; she had hit these 
facts exactly. "Have you any coin in your pocket? Take it out and 
look at the date ; don't let me see it." He drew forth an oldfashioned 
cent, well covered with pocket oxidation, and brushing off the latest 
layer, looked sharply at the numbers. "A good honest copper," she 
immediately remarked, "made in eighteen hundred and forty three, — 
and there are two names scratched on it — John and Sue — your sweet- 
heart ! God bless you ! May you have smooth sailing through this 
terrestrial sea of disease ! Take hold of my hand." John had compul- 
sions of conscience about this part of the program, for his mother had 
often warned him against such beguiling impropriety. But Miss Covert 
did not wait for him to object, and grasped his calloused palm, now 
covered with inky perspiration. "Com?," she said, "I will go with 
you, in the spirit, to your mother's side and look at her system. Ah, 
now you begin to retrace your journey of to-night. You are riding 
southward— southward — no, northward — toward Cortland— Cortland — 
yes, the way is clearer now ; those trees darkened it. Now we are pass- 
ing through Cortland — up Main street — how the wheels rattle over the 
pavement! Oat into the country— along the valley— yonder rolls a 
train of cars— how the sparks fly up from the locomotive ! Now we 
approach a little village. Are you going to drive up at that wood- 
colored house? No, you pass on— and the brick one? By that, also. 
The white one — that is it — with green blinds — yes, yes. Shall we go 
in at the front door ? No, you are not used to that. Well come around 
to the side. We are entering a large room— there is a smaller one next 
it. That woman up with a light is well — that is not yourmother. Ah, 
there she is on the bed. Why, she is along in years ! Now, let's see 
what is the matter with her. I see her heart ; it is not right ; she has 
had palpitation frequently. And her poor head ! How it has ached. 
Look at her stomach ! See the blood wildly surging through the net- 
work of capillaries ! Oh, dear, I am so sympathetic ! I feel the same 
hot inflammation myself ! I must give up treating diseases; it will 
kill me ! I will write you a prescription which will give your mother 



THE CLAIRVOYANT. Ill 

immediate relief. But you must come again by and by ; it will take 
time to make a perfect cure. Ah, I am coming back once more to base, 
physical matter. The power of the bright star is fading ! My darling 
little meteor, thrown down from I-feaven, wilt thou also fail me ? That 
too — well — there it is over !" 

John adjourned to the little old tavern for a few hours of sleep before 
taking his early morning drive home. But in wierd dreams he flew 
over land and sea, through air and clouds, led on by a swan-maiden, 
who swept wildly ahead toward some dreaded fatality. 

Some weeks later the doctor, meeting him at the post-office, said : 
Good morning, John ; how's your mother, now days? Much better, 
doctor, much better. What is she taking, Sherry ? No. VischyPNo. 
Pepsin? No. Nothing at all ? Yes, something. Come, John, what's 
the matter with you ? If she has changed doctors, that's all right ; no 
offence, you know. There's the prescription, said John, taking a little 
paper out of his hip pocket. The doctor unfolded it and read : 

SEPT1MO, SEPTIMA, SEPTIMORUM. 

Seven ounces cloves, one-seventh pound cinnamon, seven ounces root 
licorice, three-sevenths pound dried blackraspberries, seven ounces 
catnip, three-sevenths pound sage, seven ounces of peppermint. Boil 
seven hours in rain water, caught at the seventh hour of the seventh 
day of the seventh month of the year. Stir seven times with a witch 
hazel rod, making seven turns each time. Cork tightly in seven bottles 
and hide in the crotch of an ash tree. Take seven spoonfuls twice a 
day, at the hour of seven, morning and evening, repeating the following 
incantation : 

Oh, magic potion, blest compound, 
Of seven herbs and spices ground 
Make my poor body hale and sound. 

The doctor smole a smile, when he finished this curious specimen of 
materia medica. "John," he said, "come along down the street and 
tell me all about this matter." So John gave him an account of his 
visit and explained how his mother had been growing steadily better 
under the treatment. 



112 THE CLAIRVOYANT. 

"See here, John, do you know what you are dealing with ?" said the 
doctor at last. "This clairvoyancy is as old as history, but it had its 
greatest run after the time of Mesmer, who set all Vienna and Paris 
afire with superstition, in 1776, over'what he called Animal Magnetism. 
Later it was called mesmerism after the man himself. The theory that 
the operator exerts any external magnetic force has been abandoned 
and it is now looked upon as a subjective state of the nervous system, 
which may be brought on without any second person being near. At 
the present time it is being thoroughly studied by such men as Prof. 
Charcot, o^ Paris, Prof. Carpenter, of England, Dr. Bjorstrom, of 
Sweden, and Prof. G. Stanley Hall, of this country. They call it hyp- 
notism, meaning a kind of sleep. Three stages are recognized, the 
lethargic, the cataleptic, and the somnambulistic. The latter is the 
more common form used by men like Prof. Reynolds, of Ithaca, who 
give public entertainments to amuse the people. It is only a matter of 
time before these will be stopped by law, for they rack unnecessarily 
many delicate nervous systems, and lead ignorant persons to experi- 
ment with what they do not understand. In these exhibitions the op- 
erator throws a number of persons into the somnambulistic stage by 
concentration of vision, or otherwise, and then they are at his mercy ; 
for the higher powers of the mind, whfch are connected with the will 
power, are dormant, while the more automatic functions are very 
active. The vivid feelings, which come from without through the 
senses, may be almDSt completely shut off, so that the person is left to 
live in a sea of imagination, brought on and directed from one experi- 
ence to another by the skillful suggestions of the hypnotizer. At one 
instant he perspires from supposed intense heat and the next moment 
shivers with cold. Now with delight he picks strawberries off the car- 
pet and again he dodges hither and thither amidst a storm of falling 
cats. From terror caused by a swarm of bees about his ears he is 
transformed into disgust at the honey they have made in his pocket. 
Paris was the city where clairvoyants multiplied most. Originally each 
hysterical dame employed what was then called a magnetizer, a gen- 



THE CLAIRVOYANT; 113 

tleman to throw her into the hypnotic state. This was done at her 
parlors, whenever lucrative patients could be prevailed upon to call. 
But in time these ladies found it more profitable to dismiss their male 
attendant, throw themselves en rapport, or even to feign the symptoms. 
This is the form that is practiced extensively in the United States. 
Miss Covert looked at the star following the method of concentration 
of vision upon a bright object. Pressure upon the head by bandage or 
otherwise is an effective way of producing the desired state and is much 
used in India. Rhythmical music has a wonderful effect and sudden 
bursts of light or sound are also powerful means. Along with hypno- 
tism Miss Covert has mixed the superstitions attached to stars, metoric 
stones, witch hazel, the ash tree and the number seven. The latter has 
always been believed to possess healing powers, and in the South, 
to-day, the seventh son in a negro family is named Doctor. The word 
clairvoyant is of French derivation and means clear viewer. It was 
applied because of the wonderful power of the hypnotic eye, which 
can see through two or three thicknesses of linen cloth, or read micro- 
scopic print which is too fine for common sight. Thus a handkerchief 
over the eyes is no blinder at all ; the clairvoyant sees through it as 
you would through a wire screen. Many wonderful feats with band- 
aged eyes are thus explained. In the pupil of every eye is a little 
image of whatever is being seen, thrown from the front surface of the 
crystalline lens. While you were gazing at your watch and copper, she 
with her abnormally sharp eyes was looking at the images, your eye 
acting as a mirror. That is how she read your mind, my boy, not so 
strange after all, is it? Not only the eye but also the sense of touch 
becomes extraordinarily sensitive, equaling or even surpassing the 
delicacy exhibited by the blind. When you were taking that spiritual 
journey together, she was reading through the hand, by interpreting 
your muscle twitches and pulse beats. You told her everything and 
thought she was telling you. Some persons do not need the hand, but 
can read their way in the face of their companion ; they speak slowly, 
feeling along cautiously, making long pauses and watching sharply for 



114 THE CLAIRVOYANT. 

the tell-tale expressions of countenance. Miss Covert learned the 
approximate age of your mother from the lock of hair and your age. 
She named only such symptoms as all women of that age, who would 
apply to her, are subject to. But as for the prescription ! Well, if I 
had directed your mother to take seven spoonfuls of that vile concoc- 
tion once a day she would have been dead by this time. The glamour 
of mystery gives a field for superstitious belief to exercise its power 
over the body. But its efficacy will not last ; after a little the old dis- 
organization will assert itself. Don't tell your mother this ; let her 
faith in the miraculous do all it can. It is a wonderful power for cure 
and regular physicians would bring it into use if they could honestly. 
I presume there are some tolerably well-read doctors, who advertise 
clairvoyancy to draw in a class of patients who demand the marvelous. 
If their medical knowledge and skill is good, the superstition will be a 
great factor toward success. But what a mistake to suppose that the 
clairvoyant knows more about the human body, while in the hypnotic 
state, than when in her right mind. Because, sight, feeling, and the 
other senses are sharpened, people imagine a fund of medical knowl- 
edge flowing in without any equivalent effort. Because she can see 
through a few thicknesses of cloth, they conclude that walls of rooms, 
hills and total darkness are no obstructions to her vision. When will 
the world realize that nothing can be learned without earnest, persis- 
tent application ? Study and experience are the only fountains of 
knowledge in medicine or anything else. There is too much of this 
lazy dependence upon miraculous charletanry, too much confidence in 
knowledge supposed to have descended from Deity, too much belief 
in ghosts and devils. It is time this fog of superstition were clearing 
up." 

Mrs. Figita continued taking her mystic seven potion, in blissful 
ignorance of the lecture delivered to John, until once more her stomach 
revolted. Again the hasty messenger called at the Doctor's office, but 
too late now. Murmuring a confused jumble about stirring something 
with witch hazel seven times round, she passed away, to join her dearly 
beloved spouse in that abode of bliss, the "seventh heaven." 



OUR COLORED BROTHER HYPNOTIC. 115 

OUR COLORED BROTHER HYPNOTIC. 

Passing along Linden Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, about half 
past eleven at night, the writer was attracted by an unusual shouting 
and clapping of hands in the basement of the negro church just above 
the Richmond market. He had often heard demonstrations of a like 
sort before, but to-night they were unusually spirited ; so he went in. 

The darkey at the door rolled his eyes suspiciously at the white in- 
truder, motioned him to a seat and warned him not to " sturb de con- 
gregation ob de saints." The room was low and close and packed 
with perspiring freedmen. They had been " struggling with the 
spirit" all the evening and had just prevailed upon it to work. Across 
the front of the room a row of negro girls, were automatically hopping 
up and down, while the " fathers and mothers in Israel " stood around 
them shouting and clapping their hands. They had fallen into the 
simplest " two two " time, which is evidently the best to produce the 
desired effect. The original words with which they had started out 
were wellnigh lost and now it sounded like ho (spat), ho (spat), ho 
(spat), on a high pitch, followed by ho (spat), ho (spat), ho (spat), about 
a fifth lower. The beat was kept as regular as clock work and the 
poor youngsters came down with a chug, chug, chug, exactly upon 
each ho. Their knees were nearly rigid and the jar upon the brain 
would have been disastrous to a finer grade of material. They had 
lost control of their muscles completely and as long as the yelling and 
clapping contined they could not stop. Their faces wore the most piti- 
ful expressions of exhaustion and shone with perspiration. The old 
folks would spell one another in keeping up the controlling rhythm 
and thus gave the victims no relief. Now and then a new case from 
intently gazing upon the motion would be seized with the mania and 
would run with yells and wild gesticulations down the aisle and join 
the dancing band. And so it kept on and on till one poor girl reeled 
and dropped exhausted, when they all knelt down amidst sighs, gasp- 
ing for breath and moans of physical pain. 



Il6 OUR COLORED BROTHER HYPNOTIC. 

What is this strange delirium ? Has science a name for it ? Can it 
be produced independent of religious superstitions? Ought it to be 
neglected, encouraged or stopped ? 

It is no doubt an illustration of the strange power possessed by 
rhythm to hypnotize or mesmerize the body. Let the song be secular, 
if the candidates will join in with equal vim, they may be worked 
gradually into the same state of helplessness. But it is much easier to 
secure the necessary submissiveness, if some sort of superstitious dread 
accompanies the singing. 

In reflex or automatic action a sensitive impulse or wave of influ- 
ence passes from without inward to the nervous centers or ganglia. 
These collections of grey matter after a period of rest are highly 
susceptible to isomeric changes, and are, therefore, discharged, so to 
speak, by the incoming wave. The new increased impulse passes out 
through the channels of least resistence, the motor nerves going to the 
muscles, which are thus caused to contract. Now when these sensa- 
tions are rhythmic, as in hearing singing or the clapping of hands, each 
new impulse adds force, and after a little the ganglia fall into time and 
discharge rhythmically. The muscles respond, at first only special 
ones, as the feet or hands, but later, when the motor discharges be- 
come too great, they run over, as it were, into all the outleading courses 
and set the whole body to dancing. This lasts till the nerve centers 
are no longer capable of isomeric discharges, when the person falls 
down exhausted. 

In the middle ages the famous dancing mania swept over Europe, 
and everywhere people would gather in bands, driven on by a sort of 
wild infatuation, and dance round and round until they were completely 
exhausted. We all know the charms of rhythm of sound and motion 
upon the nerves and muscles. The delights of music, poetry, dancing 
and skating impress us with the truth, that the human body is rhythmic 
in its very nature and enjoys sensations of its own sort. Continue 
these indulgences far enough and they may destroy the control of the 
will power. Hence the frown of disapprobation should rest upon these 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. I 17 

methods, even though they be hidden beneath the cloak of religious 
belief. 

The negro is peculiarly susceptible to mesmeric influence, and now 
that he is his own master, he gives way easily to that lassitude which 
tempts him to neglect work and sing. Day after day and night after 
night they gather together and practice these hypnotic gymnastics. 

Baltimore is well located to exhibit the working of the " struggle for 
existence" between the African and Caucasian races. Crowding the 
dirty and poorly drained alleys, addicted to intemperance and licen- 
tiousness, ignorant of all hygienic laws, scantily fed and dressed, in a 
climate to which he is illy adapted, and racked by superstitious fears 
and mesmeric practices, our colored brother is making poor headway 
in the fight. The foolish females copy every absurdity of their white 
sisters, such as high heeled shoes and tight corsets, and both boys and 
girls pine away in the effort to make the African brain do the work of 
a Caucasian. They are becoming the poorest sort of servants and are 
therefore much out of employment and largely poverty stricken. The 
reports of the health board show a constant excess in the death rate 
over the whites of the city, and the "black stiff" has become the standby 
for medical students. 

Should Congress conclude to foment this race-fight by interfering 
with Southern elections, it would only be hastening the inevitable 
doom already pronounced by the heartless laws of nature. 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

[An Oration delivered at the Fifteenth Public Exercises of the Alumni Association of 
the State Normal and Training School, Cortland, N. Y., June 27th, 1889.] 

Two distinct methods of thought may always be discovered by study- 
ing any period of history. The one confines itself to the finite, the 
other constantly involves the infinite. The one deals with the con- 
ceivable, the other with the inconceivable; the one with the knowable 
the other with the unknowable. The one doubts, investigates, proves; 



Il8 THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

the other believes, holds fast, reiterates. The one has no respect for 
authority, when it disagrees with present knowledge, the other reveres 
the past as divine. The one confides in later research, the other ap- 
peals to inspired manuscripts. Crystallized into institutions, the one 
becomes the School, the other the Church. 

Let these two factors of society be confined each to its own proper 
sphere and all would be harmonious. But life is a struggle; it is in 
the nature of man to fight and he uses brain as well as muscle, the pen 
as well as the sword. So through all time there has been a mutual in- 
fringement of the Church and School upon each other. Not satisfied 
with their own fields of action, they dip into each others realms and 
strive to conquer territory. Long and bitter has been the strife and it 
is not over yet. 

The object of this effort is to show, that there has been a continuous 
movement from union towards separation; that at first the Church and 
school were united, gradually became estranged with occasional ret- 
rogressive periods, and have at last started on a course which can end 
only in complete separation. 

And first are there any reasons a priori for this disunion ? The grand 
generalizations of Evolution are just as true for Sociology as for Biology, 
just as unerring for groups of men as for groups of cells. All progress 
is from the simple toward the complex, the homogeneous toward the 
heterogeneous. Division of labor is the characteristic of advanced 
civilization, and the degree to which it has reached is the true measure 
of its social status. Narrower and narrower grows the sphere of each 
element of society, better and better the quality of its work; more and 
more varied become the activities, more and more definite the aim of 
each. Hence no doubt can rest in the mind of one accustomed to 
make deductions from these laws, that eventually the Church and 
School must be distinct. 

The student of history is accustomed to dwell with absorbing interest 
upon the struggle which resulted in the separation of Church and State. 
Our own constitution, reaping the blessings of centuries of experience, 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 1I9 

carefully prevents any continuation of turmoil from this disturbing 
cause. 

Charles Martel, Godfrey of Bouillon, Martin Luther, the Duke of 
Alva, Coligny, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu, Cromwell, Robespierre, 
Victor Emmanuel; these are names which flash before the mind great 
epochs of national agony. But hearken to another list : Socrates, 
Plato, Columbus, Kopernick, Galileo, Kepler, Humboldt, Newton, 
Bacon, Harvey, Darwin and Spencer : these proclaim epochs in that 
equally important conflict, "The Warfare of Science." 

In examining the argument from history it will be possible merely to 
glance at a few of the principal periods ot a single stream of civiliza- 
tion. 

And now we would gladly pierce the darkness of those geologic 
times before man began to chronicle for himself. Here and there a 
pile of human bones, intermingled with those of the hyena and cave 
bear, tell the tragic story of his life. We are forced to reason from 
analogy in making up our picture of his condition. That man has 
slowly risen from a lower state of being is no longer a matter of doubt. 
The mind of thinkers worthy of consideration is fully made up and the 
time for denying has long since past. The savage of the present day 
gives the nearest approximation to what we seek. A study of the 
growing child will also help, for the development of the individual is a 
mineature of the history of the race. 

Prehistoric man had but few concepts and these were very special. 
A few hundred objects were all he thought about, were all he had 
names for. He roamed the. forest in search of food, fought hand to 
hand with lower animals and hid in a cave at night. Each individual 
lived, at first, unaided by others ; there was no Division of Labor. 
He knew nothing of nature's laws, nothing of cause and effect, noth- 
ing of any sort of generalization. Coincidence of time was enough to 
connect any two events in his thought. He sees his shadow, now dart- 
ing ahead, now following, and again disappearing. He dreams, has 
epileptic fits, faints and dies. And so he conceives himself double, 



120 THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

thinks there is a second man hovering about, which leaves at night to 
take phantastic journeys, comes back again in the morning, sometimes 
struggles to get away in the day, and at last leaves for a longtime, per- 
haps forever. We retain these beliefs in such familiar phrases as, The 
land oj shadows and Giving up the ghost. Trees, hills and clouds have 
shadows too ; he thinks them also dual. All things have feelings like 
himself; thirst, hunger, passions. Perchance he breaks a twig from 
off a tree the day before his child is killed ; it is the vengence of the 
tree, and so he fears and worships it. And thus grows up a complicated 
fetichism, hundreds of inert objects cherished, dreaded, and supplicated. 
But differences of mental development must come sooner or later. Here 
and there a man appears, who outstrips his fellows. It is a miracle ! 
He is their human fetich, their priest, their teacher, their God. Dur- 
ing life he holds them in complete subjection, and after death is wor- 
shiped as a spirit. Behold, then, Church and School united in a Man, 

Next let us see what light the oldest recorded civilization throws 
upon our inquiry. The priests of Egypt were the richest, the most 
powerful and the only learned body of the country. They were not 
limited to sacred offices and in their caste comprised all the mathema- 
ticians, scientists, lawyers and physicians of the land. Those priests 
who excelled in virtue and wisdom, were initiated into the Holy Mys- 
teries, a privilege which they shared only with the king and prince 
royal. Education was under their control and they took care to school 
none but their own children. On the banks of the Nile, away back in 
the dawn of history, crops out that policy of suppression of education 
by the priesthood. Those servants of Osiris knew, that the spread of 
knowledge among the people meant the downfall of their control, 
From that time to this the same old idea has been the guiding princi- 
ple of church action ; education, if it is not directed by us, is a curse to 
man. 

Now we glance at that little home of philosophy, poetry and art, — 
Greece, the land of music, song and love. What changes must have 
been going on during all these centuries, for here we find the school 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 121 

emancipated. Oh, what a consummation of all that is grand and sweet 
and noble in the mind of man ! Here is the crest of a great intel- 
lectual wave and the very spray is beautiful. What thought, what 
works, what men ! 

But all action is rhythmic. The morning breeze, that stirs the pen- 
nant at the warships masthead, fans it into graceful curves. The pebble 
that drops into a quiet pool, sends out concentric waves. We have our 
rhythmic heartbeat, our regular recurring breath, our times of high and 
low vitality. At first these seem but special cases ; a little thought, how- 
ever, will show that motion is never in a straight line, but always undu- 
latory. 

And so it is in social movements. This high-tide of intellectual free- 
dom; which made Greece classic, was to be followed by a terrible deca- 
dence. Rome for a time reveled in the same feast, drank the wine of 
Grecian culture, brought forth its orators, scholars and artists. But, 
alas, that poetic religion, which filled all nature with semi-human souls, 
and fanned a blossoming intellect with toleration, was doomed to fade 
before a stronger Faith from out the East. On it swept with power 
supreme, hand in hand with the barbarian inroads from the north, and 
once more the Church and School were one. But the union could 
never again be so complete, the subjection of the school never again so 
perfect. In all progressive rhythms each crest and trough is higher 
than preceding ones ; retrogression does not dip to former levels. And 
so the School, having tasted freedom, did not take on the yoke so con- 
tentedly as before. Nevertheless, for centuries it was under the ban, 
and scholarship waned. Monks hid away in darkened cells copied and 
illuminated old manuscripts. Long and stupid disquisitions upon 
ecclesiastical, hair-splitting nothingness, topics outside the realms of 
debate, were laboriously compiled as lumbersome and worthless as 
most of our Congressional Reports. All new study and experimental 
research was carefully suppressed and the boys were taught to respect 
the wisdom of the fathers. 



122 THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

Then comes the grand turn of the wave. Modern history begins as 
the fifteenth century ends. Then began that tremendous upward move- 
ment which has never stopped. America was discovered, printing was 
invented, universities flourished, Natural Science was born. The 
School took the aggressive and has kept it ever since. Its attitude 
continued to grow bolder as its strength increased until at' last it 
demands complete independence. As a babe nursed upon its mother's 
breast grows into an impatient maiden and, fretting beneath parental 
control, at last runs off with a lover, so the school broke with the church 
and eloped with truth. 

What were the methods of this struggle ? On the part of the Church 
continual deductive reasoning from texts supposed to be infallible; on 
the part of the School inductive reasoning from new investigations. 
What were the results? They could be but one thing; victory for the 
School in every case and a consequent reinterpretation of the texts. 

The fathers deduced from scriptures, that the earth was a parallelo- 
gram, flat and surrounded by four great seas and these by walls en- 
closing the whole structure and supporting the vault of the heavens; 
the scholars sailed round the world, proved it to be an oblate spheroid 
and the solid firmament only blue space. The fathers deduced, that 
the earth was the center of the universe and all other bodies revolved 
about it; the scholars proved our little world but a satellite of the sun 
and our whole solar system but one of innumerable similar groups. The 
fathers deduced, that "God created the heavens and earth in six days" 
of twenty four hours each; the scholars proved a slow and long con- 
tinued evolution. The fathers denounced the study of Chemistry and 
Physics as the magic of the Devil; the scholars developed these fields 
of research until they have blessed every nook and cranny of life, 
The fathers considered vivisection a sin against Heaven and believed 
the arteries were, as the name implies, air tubes; the scholars sacri- 
ficed animals for the good of humanity and built up a medical science. 
The fathers deduced, that the earth has been completely deluged in 
historic times; the scholars proved this story to be a Babylonian legend 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 1 23 

of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. The fathers deduced, that man 
has lived upon the earth some six thousand years; the scholars proved, 
that the period can not be less than forty thousand and probably 
reaches back indefinitely into the past. The fathers deduced, that 
persons afflicted with epilepsy, hysteria, or insanity were possessed of 
a devil, and tried to drive him out by elaborate systems of exorcism ; 
the scholars proved these maladies to be caused by diseased nerves 
and brain and brought about gentle and humane treatment. And still 
the fathers deduce, that the universe is governed by a series of will- 
ful fiats subject to suggestions from human beings, special dispensa- 
tions to meet unlooked for emergencies, miracles, necessary because 
of the unfortunate condition of things or merely to exhibit supernatural 
power; the scholars continue to prove, the universality of law, the in- 
evitability of cause and effect, and bring forth that grandest of all gen- 
eralizations, that intellectual victory of the nineteenth century, Evolu- 
• Hon. 

This contest was rich in persecutions, trials before inquisitions, pro- 
scriptions and burning of books, forced recantations and cries of 
heretic, infidel and atheist. But we should look upon these spasms 
charitably as the concomitants of progress. Man's scope of thought is 
ever assuming a broader sphere. Each new generalization sweeps 
completely around the old positions and so reconstructs ideas, that it 
seems to those conservative minds, which can not readjust, like a con- 
coction of Satan, overturning all their loved and sacred beliefs. 
Neither should we lose sight of the ultimate effect of all this mental 
struggle, the elevation of man through the development of intellect. 

How can he advance without intense mental activity? Harmony in 
the field of thought means stagnation of the brain. This war of words 
which seems so bitter is the impetus which keeps men working. There 
is no satisfaction in proclaiming truths which everyone admits; it is 
this principle of antagonism which gives life to the mental world. 

The present is a time of comparative freedom for the school. In the 
catalogues you will find many institutions of learning declared non- 



124 THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

sectarian and a few are really free from church control. Imagine such 
a clause as the following in the constitution of a college a hundred 
years ago : " And at no time shall a majority of the Board of Trustees 
be of any religious sect or of no sect." Our own State University rests 
upon that platform. But while this noble ideal is gaining ground, the 
actual state of things is far from perfect. A crowd of little sectarian 
colleges, misnamed universities, have sprung up all over the land, and 
more are being born. They are in harmony with the philosophy of the 
times, for they do little else but " struggle for existence.' ' They lack 
money, they lack students, they lack brains. They put a carefully 
written paragraph in their catalogues, telling timid mothers what 
tender supervision will brood over their darling boys ; and when the 
lad arrives he finds a pandemonium, the whole institution, practically 
in the hands of the Sophomore class. They take great care in select- 
ing their teachers, not that they shall be the best instructors, but that 
they shall be strong- men in the denomination. In answer to an appli- 
cation for a position in one of these schools a young man lately re- 
ceived the following reply : "If you are thirty years old and a mem- 
ber of the Presbyterian Church, you stand a fair chance of securing 
the place.' ' He wrote back: " I could fix the church matter easily 
enough, but I see no way of adding ten years to my age." A president 
comes to one of our great centers of post graduate study to find a 
chemist for his waning college. The best available man is sent in, 
Fellow of the University, widely known for his original researches : 
(t Are you a member of the Baptist Church ?" " I am not a member 
of any church, sir." "I am afraid your application cannot be con- 
sidered." Such is the brief colloquy. To meet these emergencies we 
teachers are often very strategic. We join this church or that, as it 
seems most expedient, subscribing to the creed with mental reserva- 
tions. We have a supply of Evolution for our classes and of Methodism 
for the Board of Trustees. We smooth over the conflict between 
church and school and say : u It is only a matter of interpretation of 
words — when their true figurative meaning is discovered, all will be 



THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 1 25 

harmonious — there is no real contradiction — one revelation cannot, op- 
pose another. " And all the while we are smothering a mental war 
within ourselves ; the battle is going on there and making sad havoc 
with our arsenals of thought. 

Another evil of these little sectarian colleges is the degrading of 
degrees. Every June there must be the usual flourish of honors or the 
commencement will not appear well in the papers. The Freshman 
Class must be filled up. And so a quiet search is made for principals 
of preparatory schools, influential divines and men who may be able 
to direct the youth in their educational career, and upon whom the 
doctorate will, therefore, be profitably disposed. Bachelor degrees are 
given without residence at the college and A. M. without the neces- 
sary A. B. It is surprising how many graduates of the large univer- 
sities have found it pleasant to take their second and third degrees 
elsewhere. Indeed it is becoming necessary to attach the name of the 
institution, in parenthesis, that the meritorious may be distinguished 
from the spurious. All previous records were broken lately, when a 
New York State Presbyterian divine, who had never attended college, 
received from a so-called Chicago University the degrees of A. B., A. 
M. and Ph. D., all at one time. 

It is plain, therefore, that evils still exist, the result of that old effort 
of the church to supervise the school. But it must finally confine its 
attention to its true sphere, the theological seminary. Those great 
laws of social development are sure to work out their ends. Popula- 
tion, business, intellect, following the lines of least resistance, will 
slowly integrate about favored centres. Broad, non-sectarian univer- 
sities will more and more absorb th? scholarship of the land ; universi- 
ties in which a Buddhist, Confucian, Mohammedan or Jew shall feel as 
welcome as a Christian ; universities where the search for truth shall 
be untrammeled by any fear of overthrowing previous notions. 
Through the influence of leaders developed in such places this spirit of 
liberality will permeate the whole educational system. Qur public 



126 THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

schools will have non-sectarian boards and Bostonion scrambles for 
control will be a relic of the past. 

Bright indeed is the outlook for him who loves purity and freedom 
of thought ! And what, after all, can equal this ? 

What are the chains of physical slavery, if the mind U only free? 
Oh, how many a teacher rankles under the bonds of mental servitude ! 
Salary, position in society, wife and children, father and mother, these 
sometimes lead men to shaekle the soul, "Give me riches, give me 
power, and I will cease to think ; I will set bolts and bars about my 
mind and live a mental imbecile. Or, if I leap the walls, I'll do it in 
the night ; the world shall never know that I am free. If thought can- 
not be chained, speech surely can ; Flltalkin standard formulae, these 
rattle pleasantly upon the public ear." Thus soliloquizes the outwardly 
calm and successful scholar who has determined to sacrifice his inward 
peace. He lives a logical dilemma, constantly struggling to harmonize 
the opposing horns. But slowly society is learning to draw the veil 
from this duplicity. Such books as Robert Elsmere are teaching the 
world that many a man finds it hard to tight his own intellect. Surely 
the day is approaching, when integrity of thought, fidelity to honest 
convictions, openness of character, devotion to truth, shall be among the 
grand elements of success. 

At first man lived a child of chance, 
A slave to fraud and necromance ; 
The world in myst'ry wrapped around, 
His mind in superstition bound. 
But, as the centuries rolled along, 
His heart burst forth in joyous song, 
For deep within his nature lay 
A force that drove vile ghosts away. 
Egyptian priests enslaved his thought, 
But Grecian schools his freedom sought ; 
A cloud of darkness floated o'er, 
But Science found another shore, 
Where bloss'ming intellect supreme 
Shall realize his wildest dream. 
At last he wields the mighty rod 
Of thought, and seems almost a God. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRES 

022 204 26$ 



Man in his tireless st2-uarg\Ze toxvzird trutli is 
ever impeded by the \A?reclzage of the past- 
To clear away the rubbish of superstition 
is to elevate the race. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



III 
022 204 269 4 



